China is watching, listening and learning to the world’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The blanket refusal of the United States to deploy combat troops in Ukraine is not lost on Beijing, whose leaders have long been deterred from using force to achieve full unification with Taiwan out of fear of US intervention. While the willingness of the US to defend Taiwan is an open question, Beijing also understands that it cannot discount the lessons from Russia’s faltering war effort.
At the very least, the stalled Russian offensive reveals to China that the costs of attempting to fulfil its goals in Taiwan are likely to be intolerably high, even without a direct military conflict with the United States.
Russia’s failure to take Kyiv reportedly left Chinese officials, who have traditionally admired Moscow’s military capabilities, “surprised and unsettled”. Russian forces underestimated the ferocity of Ukraine’s resistance — a mistake that Beijing would be wise to avoid making in a war with Taiwan. At the same time, the Ukraine crisis has emphasised to Taiwan the importance of boosting its civil defence, and has prompted its leaders to consider extending the amount of time that citizens are required to serve in the military. The US has encouraged Taiwan to acquire more mobile weapons for its military that would better enable it to carry out asymmetric warfare if faced with an all-out assault by Beijing. Such efforts would further complicate a Chinese invasion. While a surprise blitzkrieg attack could blunt Taiwan’s ability to mount a Ukraine-style resistance, Chinese forces would face the additional obstacle of launching a difficult, full-scale amphibious invasion of the island nation of Taiwan. All of this compounds the difficulty of achieving forceful reunification for China, which, unlike Russia, has not fought a war in over four decades. China’s leaders also have reason to be unnerved by the breadth and speed of the financial and economic sanctions levied against Moscow. Of note, the joint effort to sanction Russia included several Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, which have sought to signal their opposition to the invasion of a weaker country by a more powerful neighbour. While China’s economy is much larger than Russia’s, it will not necessarily be more resilient to international sanctions. China is far more integrated into the world economy and international community than Russia. The Chinese Communist Party has staked its legitimacy on continued economic growth and prosperity, and is likely to be far more sensitive than Russia to economic disruptions.
