The Hill 26 April 2022 - by Joseph Bosco
World leaders were universally shocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with two exceptions. President Biden said U.S. intelligence gave him plenty of advance notice. China’s Xi Jinping met with Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Olympics, where they jointly issued a “no-limits strategic partnership” statement that included opposition to NATO expansion — Putin’s initial rationale for invading Ukraine — and to Eastern Europe’s colour revolutions that started with Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004.
Putin’s two months of savagery, which Biden has labelled war crimes and genocide, are consistent with his 23-year record in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Together with political assassinations in Russia, his actions should have surprised no one.
Western governments and business interests chose to look the other way, including successive Democratic and Republican administrations, during Putin’s tenure. Deceived and/or intimidated, they were wary of challenging the man who has now exceeded the depredations of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milošević and whose inhuman aggression has made him in the world’s eyes a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Even his mistress, accused of hiding his wealth, goes unsanctioned for fear of offending Putin.
As Xi observes Putin’s costly but incremental territorial gains in Ukraine, he is certainly drawing lessons for his own plan to attack Taiwan. Positive and negative signals will either embolden or inhibit him.
The surprisingly poor performance of the Russian army in the face of valiant and skilled Ukrainian resistance could cause Xi to question the wisdom of launching a Taiwan invasion scenario. Whether the Chinese and Taiwanese will play the same respective roles as incompetent Russians and battle-hardened Ukrainians, however, cannot be assumed. The minimal level of training for Taiwan’s reserve forces — four months — does not bode well for a ground defence against a well-trained, professional invasion force of the People’s Liberation Army after a relentless air and missile bombardment campaign.
Geographical factors also would influence the course of a cross-Strait conflict, in opposite directions. China would have to cross 100 miles of water to occupy Taiwan, no matter how much long-range destruction and havoc its planes, missiles and navy might wreak on the island. Ukraine’s sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship is a sobering forecast of what the PLA Navy would confront.
Yet, the fact that Taiwan is a modestly-sized island, compared to Ukraine’s vast land expanse, enables Beijing to concentrate its attack on a much smaller target area and utilize its fires more efficiently — and for a longer duration.
China also may be tempted to adopt Russia’s barbaric siege tactic on Mariupol: batter the place into near-submission, and then encircle the trapped population to prevent either escape or life-saving replenishments of food, water and weaponry. As Putin said, the cordon around the city to starve out its defenders is so tight that “not even a fly could get through.”
A blockade of the entire island of Taiwan, especially its main ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung, is feasible. During the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, China’s missile firings twice closed the Strait to all ocean and air-borne commerce, sending shipping and insurance rates soaring for the duration of the crisis.
