The West must focus on the threat to Taiwan

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Speaking in Washington DC yesterday, Britain’s National Security Adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is part of a wider struggle over what the post-Cold War international order will look like. The West must resolutely stand up against the growing threats posed by regional powers, including China, pursuing their own “might is right” agendas. Taiwan’s armed forces have spent this week simulating their response to an invasion from mainland China. The war games are an annual event intended to remind Beijing of the price it would pay if it were to attack the island. These are set against a backdrop of rising tension that Western governments need to take seriously.

The threat to Taiwan from China has persisted since Chiang Kai-shek fled to the former Formosa after defeat in the civil war in 1949 and established his Republic of China in exile, a state that only a few countries in the world – not the United States or the UK – recognise as an independent nation. The Chinese Communist Party has been determined ever since to integrate the island into the People’s Republic. President Xi Jinping sees it as his destiny to do so, just like Vladimir Putin saw it as his to make Ukraine part of Russia once more.

There are parallels. The threat to Ukraine was not taken seriously enough in the West after Moscow’ annexation of Crimea in 2014, encouraging the Kremlin leader to go further in the belief that he could do so with impunity. He miscalculated badly, yet a clearer message needs to be sent to President Xi about the consequences of a similar geopolitical mistake on his part.

Isolating China given its central role in the world’s supply chain would be an act of a different order to the sanctions imposed on Russia, which have proven problematic enough for countries such as Germany that have become dependent on Russian energy supplies.

Now, fresh tensions have been stoked over a planned visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, which Beijing says will provoke “consequences” though without saying what they might be. China objects to anything that looks like formal recognition of Taiwan and President Xi may feel emboldened to test America’s commitment to the island amid the confusing recent signals sent by Joe Biden.

Western capitals are rightly preoccupied with what is happening in Ukraine but there is a risk that they are failing to see an even greater danger taking shape in the Far East.