+ Taiwan Learns from Ukraine War
+ China’s Demographic Challenge
+ Ukraine War: Russia at an Impasse
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Taiwan: Bone of Contention in the Western Pacific
According to Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s top representative in Washington, the country has learned very important lessons from Russia’s Ukraine war, such that it would help deter any attack by China or defend itself if invaded (AP/Associated Press, Jan.21).
However, the fact is that Taiwan is not recognized as an independent nation by most countries in the world, including the United States, nor is it a member of the United Nations.
For that reason, Ms. Hsiao may be one of the most prolific and distinguished envoys in Washington, but is not officially an “Ambassador”.
Among the lessons for the self-ruled island: Do more to prepare military reservists and also civilians for the kind of all-of-society fight that Ukrainians are waging against Russia.
Everything the Taiwanese were now doing was to prevent the pain and suffering of the tragedy of Ukraine from being repeated in the scenario of Taiwan, according to Ms. Hsiao.
“So ultimately, we seek to deter the use of military force. But in a worst case scenario, we understand that we have to be better prepared,” she added.
The past year has been one of high tensions with China, including the Chinese launching ballistic missiles over Taiwan and temporarily suspending most dialogue with the US after then-House Speaker’s controversial and provocative visit to Taiwan in August.
Taiwan or Formosa as it was then called, was occupied by Japan until World War II and then became a refuge for the nationalist Kuomintang under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek after they lost the civil war 1949 to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
However, Mainland China claims Taiwan as an integral part of its territory under the ‘One China Doctrine’, recognized by all states maintaining diplomatic relations with Beijing, including the U.S.
The decades-old threat of invasion by China of the self-governed island has sharpened since China cut off communications with the island’s government in 2016.
This happened after Taiwanese voters elected a government that Beijing suspected of wanting to take Taiwan from self-rule to full independence.
In Washington, there is strong bipartisan support for Taiwan.
For decades, U.S. official policy has been to deliberately to ignore or leave in limbo whether the U.S. military would come to Taiwan’s defence if China did actually invade the island.
This was the much vaunted doctrine of ‘strategic ambiguity’, to keep the mainland Chinese guessing.
Hsiao also pointed out that the existing policy had preserved the status quo for decades, i.e. maintained peace in the region.
However, U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly breached this self-imposed restraint by unilaterally stating that the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defence if it was attacked. He did not spell out what form this aid would take.
The fact is that his security aides have had to walk that back every time with assurances that U.S. policy has not changed – that strategic ambiguity remains on the cards!
Taiwan’s leaders have also realized that China’s mightier military could be expected to destroy those big and very expensive targets of aircraft and naval vessels in the very first instance of attacks.
Taiwan is, therefore, already pushing to make sure that a shift to smaller, grittier, lower-tech, mobile weapons systems – Javelins, Stingers, HIMARS — happens as soon as possible.
Taiwan—A Key U.S. Bastion in the Western Pacific?
And even with the U.S. and other allies pouring billions of dollars worth of such weapons into Ukraine for the active and continuing fight there, straining global arms stocks, the Taiwanese are rest assured that Taiwan remains a very important priority.
This is because Taiwan holds a major trump card in their hands – it is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors – crucial for the global economy.
Taiwan’s continued self-rule and territorial integrity is, therefore, seen by the U.S. – and also Japan – as essential for their own national security.
China’s Crisis of Dwindling Population
There have been stunning news that China’s population shrank for the first time since 1961 – more than 60 years ago.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman [Nobel Laureate in Economics] notes the concurrent challenge of population aging – which will require spending more on social services and health care for the elderly, with fewer young workers to foot the bill – along with another problem, for which Japan is the poster child: a mix of low growth and deflation.
[Deflation is an economic condition whereby the prices of goods and services go down constantly with the inflation rate turning negative].
Is China, the new Japan – economically?
With fewer workers, there’s less reason to invest, for instance by building a factory, Krugman writes.
So, when working-age populations decline, so can investment (or at least its returns).
“A society with a declining working-age population tends, other things being equal, to experience persistent economic weakness,”
Krugman notes.
“Japan illustrates the point: Its working-age population peaked in the mid-1990s, and the country has struggled with deflation ever since, despites decades of extremely low interest rates.”
The Conversation points to more ramifications: the social shift toward a society with many adults without children and many elderly parents, and a political dynamic in which the party-state will be judged by citizens on how it handles the task for providing for older citizens.
China’s Demographic Trajectory
However, China’s demographic decline is not exactly breaking news.
The one-child policy, which restricted Chinese couples from having more than one child was in place for decades.
Last year, the UN’s annual global-population report predicted India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country sometime in 2023.
China’s government did announce the end of the one-child policy in 2015, and began to allow three children in 2021; but it was the proverbially ‘too little, too late’.
The Economist writes that many young Chinese citizens – women in particular – are not on board.
Due to expensive housing and child-raising costs, government attempts to encourage more children have sounded tone-deaf to many.
Gender norms are also evolving, too. As a result having babies has gone out of fashion!
What can the government do to reverse the trend?
The China Project/China Vibe writes ominously: “It sure seems like the demographic trend is irreversible unless China takes radical measures:
- Will Beijing completely get rid of birth restrictions?
- Will it introduce more incentives for couples to have children?
- Or, more darkly, will it find ways to reduce the number of abortions”.
It’s almost certain that China will take action, but there is the hope that it will not be too drastic.
As Krugman notes, the state of the Chinese economy has ramifications for the world economy, and China is a superpower with an authoritarian and seemingly erratic leader.
He doesn’t think “it’s alarmist to worry about how it will react if its economy performs poorly,” (NYT/New York Times, Jan.23).
Limits of Russia Scorched Earth Tactics
As Russia continues its unprovoked, illegal was turned to the wanton destruction of an apartment building in the city of Dnipro.
In this connection, speaking with CNN, retired US Army Lt.Gen. Mark Herting suggested Moscow was now waging a war of attrition on Ukrain’s civilians. This was clearly a war crime.
In the broader context of President Vladimir Putin’s war, crucial will be what will come next from and for Russia.
Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times argues there is no clear path to victory for Moscow.
Even if its army succeeded in turning the war’s momentum and toppling the government in Kyiv, Rachman writes, “a wounded and isolated Russia would then be stuck in a decades-long guerrilla war that would make Afghanistan look like a picnic.”
A similar grim prospect paints Kateryna Pishchikova in Carnegie Europe: “In so many ways, Russia has already lost. Whatever victory it hopes to claim, the costs will most likely outweigh the gains.”
Which leaves few possibilities that some Russians, many Ukrainians and the rest of the world will find encouraging.
In this context, Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman in Foreign Affairs doubt That Putin’s regime will fall, instead examining what they term “wartime Putinism”: a militarized state and repressed political sphere and a crackdown on domestic political dissent – possibly to include a second mobilization of reservists or conscripts – little more than cannon fodder.
The Economist contemplates the possibility that Putin could conscript about 500,000 more men to mount a spring offensive, even as military deaths are already causing much pain.
Russia’s Quality-Quantity Problem
Military strategists are contemplating the major question whether Putin can win his war on Ukraine by relying on conscripts and mercenaries.
Retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan does not think so.
He told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that the notorious Russian mercenary army Wagner Group “has the same problem that the Russian army has: what’s the motivation for it being in Ukraine? It will never have the same motivation as the Ukrainian army, so there’s certainly as asymmetry there. And the Ukrainian military is becoming better equipped while the Wagner Group and the Russian army are not. I think that asymmetry will play out.”
Supply of German ‘Leopard 2’ Battle Tanks: Footdragging/Angst/Balanced?
Germany has become one of Ukraine’s leading weapons suppliers in the 11 months since Russia’s invasion.
However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also gained an undeserved reputation for hesitating to take each new step – generating unnecessary impatience among domestic and international allies.
The supply of ‘Leopold 2’ battle tanks will probably be a game changer in the next phase of Putin’s aggressive war.
Critics of Germany’s military policy have not taken into account Germany’s convulsive history in the 20th century, nor the character and personality of Olaf Scholz, who unexpectedly but resolutely catapulted his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to power in a coalition government.
It is not hesitancy nor angst that guides Germany’s deliberation on supplying the ‘Leopard 2’ tanks, but the need to weigh carefully the timing.
Germany’s carefully calibrated policy is rooted in a post-World War II political culture of military caution, along with present-day worries about a possible escalation of the war – in intensity, as well as spatially.
And Germans in general do feel that they have a special responsibility vis-à-vis Russia. Under Social Democrat Chancellor Willy Brandt, Germany achieved the historic breakthrough rapprochement with the Soviet Union with its historic Ostpolitik.
Chancellor Scholz himself is embarking on a historic transformation of German foreign and security policy in his Zeitenwende – the epoch-making time of reorganization and reshaping.
Germany today is like a slumbering giant awakening to its duties in an evolving world. You cannot expect Europe’s biggest power which had previously hidden its light under a bushel to suddenly throw its weight around.
Given that it has been punching below its weight; now it is slowly but certainly asserting itself. As the German proverb says: ‘Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat’ [= when the time is ripe, it will bring better counsel].
“Scholz, an unshakable self-confident politician with a stubborn streak and little taste for bowing to public calls for action, has stuck resolutely to his approach” (AP, Jan. 21).
He insists that Germany will not go it alone on weapons decisions and pointed to the need to avoid NATO becoming a direct party to the war with Russia – in the spirit of the alliance.
As the new German defence minister Boris Pistorius cogently stated: “We have to balance all the pros and contras before we decide things like that, not just like that” [!]
And the decision when it comes will be balanced and definitely in favour of Ukraine.
Henry Kissinger’s Evolving Views on Ukraine
One of the world’s most astute statesman and former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s stance on Ukraine has evolved over the years, including on whether the country should become a NATO member (Newsweek, 19).
Speaking (virtually) at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week, the 99-year-old Kissinger said: “Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we have seen now”.
However, “the idea of a neutral Ukraine under these circumstances is no longer meaningful”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the threat of Ukraine joining NATO was one of the reasons he launched the invasion last February 24.
Putin is, of course, logically false and factually misleading. He is attempting to justify his heinous aggression after the fact – ex post facto.
Kissinger, who was instrumental in formulating U.S. Cold War policy toward the Soviet Union when he served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has long said Ukraine should remain neutral and not join NATO.
However, under the changed circumstances, he said at Davos that Ukraine joining the Trans-Atlantic Alliance could now be an “appropriate outcome” of Russia’s invasion.
This would be the unintended consequence of Putin’s geo-political miscalculation, not his foresight!
Door to Diplomacy/Negotiation Should be Kept Open
Himself a diplomatic negotiator par excellence, Kissinger said that dialogue must be kept open between Russia and other countries even as the war rages on in Ukraine.
His unique perspective rejects the idea of ‘either – or’, but embraces duality.
Thus, Kissinger said that Ukraine should recapture territory that has been annexed by Russia while holding negotiations to end the war, which has been raging for 11 months.
He said that a diplomatic process could help Russia “re-evaluate its historic position, which was an amalgam of an attraction to the culture of Europe and a fear of domination by Europe.” This underlines Kissinger’s deep perspicacious understanding of history and the influence it still projects on current international affairs.
Kissinger no longer advocates a ceasefire that would see Ukraine accept some of the annexed territories as Russian land.
“If Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other – it should function as a bridge between them,” he wrote in a Washington Post column.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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