We’re delighted to offer something new for China Currents — a special, multimedia issue on China’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The issue features three of our associates — Dr. Yawei Liu, senior advisor on China at The Carter Center in Atlanta; Dr. Andrew Wedeman, professor of Political Science at Georgia State University; and Dr. John Wagner Givens, Associate Professor of International Studies at Spelman College. Each contributed a short essay with their perspectives on the question and then met for a fascinating Zoom discussion moderated by Katherine Peavy, a risk, resilience and security expert with many years of experience in China and East Asia. The essays and the video are featured in the issue.

The idea for the issue arose from a discussion with Katherine Peavy, Dr. Wedeman, Dr. Givens, Dr. Penelope Prime, our managing editor, Dr. John Garver and me over a lengthy dinner shortly after the Russian invasion. We hope you find it as valuable as we found it enjoyable to produce.

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Unexpected developments, however, changed expectations and raised the prospect of greater uncertainly or even potential conflict.

Three Surprises

The first surprise in 2022 was Russian President Vladmir Putin’s visit to China before the Winter Games. The two countries agreed to form a partnership of “no limits.” On February 24, four days after the Olympic flame was extinguished in Beijing, Putin’s military began its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Despite a history of being invaded by foreign powers and a sensitivity to the issue of territorial integrity and political sovereignty, China is one of a small number of nations that has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion. Beijing believes NATO’s eastward expansion pressured Moscow to act, and that Putin was justified in launching the war. Although China has been careful not to provide material support to Russia’s war effort, its position has gravely alienated the U.S. and other developed nations.

The second unexpected development has been China’s adherence to the draconian “zero COVID” approach that has led to lockdowns of many major cities or urban districts, even as most other countries are slowly but firmly coming out of the pandemic. The government has used the pandemic to deploy the strictest mechanisms of surveillance. Many people under lockdown have been getting upset, and the economy has been a victim of collateral damage. The pace of China’s economic growth last year and this year is the slowest since the beginning of the opening and reform in the late 1970s. In late May, Premier Li Keqiang convened an emergency meeting, asking more than 100,000 officials at all levels who attended the meeting virtually to do their utmost to stabilize the economy. What China used to be proud of — its quickness in mobilizing resources and its efficiency in getting the public to cooperate with government policies — has now been turned into an effective tool to control people’s movement and has become fertile ground for rent-seeking corruption.

The third event that jolted China was the visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After the Financial Times leaked word of the possible visit, China orchestrated a rare popular and official campaign to stop Pelosi from going to Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespeople used the strongest language to warn the U.S. government not to cross a red line regarding Taiwan. The PLA declared it would not remain idle when the nation’s sovereignty was at stake. Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with the People’s Daily, publicly called the Chinese military to escort Pelosi’s plane to the Taipei airport. When there was no sign of Pelosi backing down, Hu declared Chinese fighter jets could shoot down her plane. However, it was all quiet in China on the evening of August 2, when Pelosi landed in Taipei to a hero’s welcome. For those Chinese who were hoping to see a strong reaction from their government, it was a long and painful night. China’s retaliation was late but massive.

Diplomatic Isolation from Developed Nations

The Russian invasion prompted the U.S. government to put on hold its decision to abolish some of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. President Biden sent a high-level delegation to Taiwan to reassure Taipei of the American commitment to Taiwan. The Pentagon released its National Defense Strategy, labeling China as the biggest threat to American national security. In May, President Biden made a trip to East Asia, introduced the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and attended the QUAD summit in Tokyo. Many suggest QUAD eventually will evolve into a NATO in Asia.

In their isolation, Chinese leaders are getting to the point of believing a new normalization of U.S.-China relationship is hopeless. If they reach that conclusion, they may do the following: 1) Move more aggressively to implement the dual circulation strategy, which involves shifting exports to the domestic market; 2) Sell off Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury bills and transfer Chinese assets in the U.S. elsewhere; 3) De-list its companies from American stock exchanges as soon as possible; 4) Discourage Chinese people from studying in or even traveling to the U.S.; 5) Deepen its relationships with countries that are on America’s sanctions list.

China’s best chance to drag Europe away from the U.S. bandwagon was in January 2020 when Beijing and Brussels signed the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. This opportunity was doomed after China reacted strongly and overbearingly to EU sanctions on Chinese government officials believed to be responsible for China’s policies toward ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has alienated European countries further. The last EU-China summit was characterized by EU leaders as tone deaf. Latvia and Estonia’s decision to withdraw from the 16+1 bloc, a regular forum for China to discuss issues of common concerns with Eastern European nation, is a strong indication that China-Europe relations have entered a cold winter.

Economic Recession and Popular Anger

Regardless of what the official media says about the CCP, its only claim to legitimacy comes from its ability to deliver on economic growth in the past four decades. However, China’s spectacular economic growth has now come to an abrupt stop. It has been caused by a series of domestic policy reversals and unprecedented pressures from abroad. Domestically, the reversals have brought a pivot to the state-owned enterprises, an attempt to control capital and get rich Chinese people to give up their wealth under the banner of common prosperity, heavy dependence on the real estate sector that cannot sustain itself, and a banking crisis. Internationally, the U.S. has been leading the campaign to contain China through a large-scale trade war, stifling sanctions, strenuous efforts to freeze investment flows, and economic coalition-building. At the national economic conference in December 2021, the top Chinese leadership indicated that the people should be prepared to tighten their belts as the economic situation looked increasingly bleak. The last straw may be self-inflicted — COVID lockdowns. Since this policy is so intimately associated with China’s top leader, it will not be reversed at least until after the Communist Party’s National Congress in late October.

The economic recession and the subsequent popular discontent, which was on display during the Shanghai lockdown, will pose a serious threat to the leadership in 2023. Currently, the unemployment rate of China’s more than 10 million college graduates is hovering above 20%. The Chinese leaders are keenly aware that this is the group that has a historical track record of wreaking havoc on the nation. They were marchers in 1919, 1976, and 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Each of these movements led to drastic political change.

Taiwan, the Damocles Sword

Jiang Zemin stepped down in 2002 as China’s top leader. During his reign, he famously declared that there must be a timetable on liberating Taiwan. Almost 20 years after Jiang stepped down, China has yet to make its final move against the self-governing island.

Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 and he has since made the return of Taiwan to the motherland more urgent because unification is now one of the most important benchmarks of China’s final national rejuvenation. There is speculation that China’s constitution was amended so that the Taiwan issue could be resolved while the China’s current leader is still in power.

In the wake of the Russo-Ukraine war, the Party cannot and will not make this final move until they know answers to the following questions: 1) How hard will Taiwanese fight to defend their freedoms and country? 2) How should it deal with U.S. military intervention (the Biden Administration has repeatedly indicated that U.S. WILL intervene militarily)? 3) How united will the West be in confronting a Chinese invasion? 4) Can the Chinese economy survive drastic sanctions and stifling boycotts? 5) Can China pacify Taiwan after the war is over?

But the visit by Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have changed the thinking on Taiwan among China’s top leadership. First, the high-profile welcome Pelosi received in Taiwan made it clear that the emotional distance between mainland and Taiwan is probably too vast for the two sides to come close again. Furthermore, more lawmakers from the U.S. and leaders from other developed countries will swarm to Taiwan in the coming months. Taiwan is inching toward de facto independence. Second, China not only failed to stop Pelosi from going to Taiwan but did not take any military action when she landed. Chinese people tend to interpret this as the top leadership being too timid and not as decisive as previous leaders like Mao Zedong, who decided to intervene in Korea, and Deng Xiaoping who invaded Vietnam. Third, the Russian war in Ukraine is a live classroom for Taiwan to learn how to defend themselves successfully against a stronger enemy. Finally, it appears that despite President Biden’s rhetoric, the U.S. has not made up its mind on whether to intervene militarily in the wake of its withdrawal from Afghanistan and in the context of China’s expanding military capabilities.

Conclusion

What happened in 2022 has upset China in a significant way. Its support for Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned it into a pariah in the international community. U.S. policies toward China before and after the invasion have made it impossible for Beijing to revise its moral support for Moscow. Pelosi’s visit may prompt China to consider offering material support. This would further alienate China from the club of developed countries whose markets are vital to China’s economic growth. The already troubled situation of the Chinese economy has been aggravated by its own stubborn and unscientific approach to COVID. Pelosi’s visit has made the resolution of the Taiwan question more urgent. Radical nationalism, deliberately nurtured by the Chinese government, has reared its ugly head and it will make pursuit of patience in dealing with Taiwan impossible.

In their recent writings, Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University, and Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggest pessimistic powers are more prone to use force to achieve national objectives. From 1992 through 2012, China was rising and confident of its future. The leadership sought to convince Taiwan to come back through peaceful means. In the last 10 years, China’s rare luck seems to have run out. And 2022 hit China hard.

After the Party’s 20^th National Congress in late 2022, the leadership will enter 2023 with more concerns about its faltering economy, growing social discontent and increasing resentment against the Western bloc’s collective effort to contain China. It will have less patience on the Taiwan issue. In this volatile domestic and international environment, it is not unthinkable for top Chinese leadership to make rash decisions that will plunge the world into an uncertain dark era of great power rivalry and rob China of its historic dividends since the opening to the world in the late 1970s.

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There is a strong case for making Russia an example for other countries wanting to settle real or imagined territorial disputes through force. If Russia can keep territorial gains, negotiate a peace, and re-enter the world relatively quickly, possible belligerents will draw the conclusion that they can do the same. If lifting sanctions on Russia is the price of peace, then countries must do so at Ukraine’s request. Regardless, they should use whatever tools of diplomacy available to them to make a lasting impression that Russia, and particularly its high-ranking leaders, will pay a price indefinitely.

China has probably already drawn military lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its consequences. It is difficult to know how these will impact its estimates of the United States’ appetite to defend Taiwan, the island’s military capabilities, rich democracies’ stomach for prolonged economic sanctions, or the PRC’s ability to weather them. There is only so much the international response to Russia can do to impact these calculations. What Chinese leaders must become convinced of, however, is that the diplomatic and political costs of an invasion of Taiwan are not worth it. If Russians have trouble getting visas for holidays to France and athletes are kept out of Wimbledon, it could help make an invasion look unappealing to China, especially for a regime that has staked its legitimacy on making China strong and respected abroad. There are signs Russian elites are beginning to criticize the war, yet Putin, like Xi, seems to have retained sufficient popular and elite support thus far. The sting of sanctions will need to prove stronger and longer-lasting if they are really to be an example.

The Russian example should show top Chinese leaders that if China invades Taiwan their foreign assets will be seized, and their children would no longer be welcome in world’s top universities. Ideally, examples of measures that would specifically target and hurt top Chinese leaders should go beyond simply disincentivizing an attack on Taiwan and should make China’s leadership think twice about how long they want Xi’s rule to continue unchecked.

Born eight months apart in the world’s two largest Communist countries, the similarities between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are notable. There were, however, profound differences between the countries they inherited from their predecessors. Despite a constitutional crisis, likely election fraud, and massive political influence from oligarchs, Russia in 1999 was relatively freer and more democratic. Its post-Soviet political structure had yet to be institutionalized and it was struggling to find its economic footing after a decade of decline. In contrast, 2012 China was much less free and democratic, but had institutionalized a regular transfer of power and engineered 25 years of near 10% growth. Despite these differences, Xi and Putin’s rule mark the beginnings of periods of repression. Figure 1 demonstrates this as the Varieties of Democracy Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information index shows marked declines starting when Putin and Xi take power in their respective countries. While the decline under Putin is more dramatic, as Russia had further to fall, it is notable that the trend continues largely unabated in both countries.

Figure 1: Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information index for Russia for Russia and China 1980-2021

Source: Varieties of Democracy Dataset

Similarities notwithstanding, Putin has been in power a dozen years longer and could be made to serve as a cautionary tale for top Chinese leaders. From 2008-2012, he used Dmitry Medvedev as a placeholder to extend his effective rule of Russia past constitutional limits. In the Fall of 2022, the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is the equivalent moment for Xi when he will almost certainly make the moves necessary to rule China for a third term. By staying in power beyond what law and precedent allow, he will announce both his intention and ability to rule China indefinitely. If Chinese leaders can see that Putin’s adventurism has needlessly hurt their Russian peers, it could convince them to put curbs on Xi’s power or even pressure him to name a successor or retire.

Putin’s invasion is rooted in his revanchism, reconstruction of Russian national identity as the protector of Slavic (Russian) people, and an effort to shore up his legacy as a leader on par with Peter the Great – a comparison he welcomes. A common theme in history is that the longer leaders are in power and the less opposition they face, the more likely they are to overreach, especially in terms of foreign policy. In other words, the longer Xi stays in power the more likely he follows a similar path to the one Putin has trod. For better or worse it seems clear what form this is likely to take. 

Since the Chinese Nationalist Party fled there in 1949, all parties have recognized Taiwan as part of China, but practically distinct. For a generation, the common wisdom of China-watchers was: “The number one principle – if you are a Chinese leader – is not that you have to regain Taiwan in the next five years. It’s that you can’t lose Taiwan.”

More recently, this logic may have begun to shift, and Beijing seems more inclined to seriously consider an effort to retake Taiwan. In part, this is because the balance of power has slowly moved in Beijing’s favor. But it may also be the product of Xi’s consolidation of power and need to prove himself by producing tangible evidence that he has made China strong. In some ways, Xi has more need of a dramatic gesture to prove himself than Putin, who can still claim credit for pulling Russia’s economy out of its doldrums of the 1990s. By contrast, Xi has largely overseen a gradual slowing after three decades of exceptional economic growth. Whether or not Xi ever receives bad health news, as Putin supposedly has, the older he gets and the longer he stays in power the more he will feel pressure to do something dramatic to secure his legacy and the more tempting Taiwan might become.

Domestic troubles could also provoke the need for dramatic action on Taiwan as a distraction. It is insufficient, therefore, simply to use the Russian example to make the costs of an invasion of Taiwan look high and hope that a cost-benefit analysis will prevail on the side of peace. Consequences for Russia that make Chinese leaders doubt the wisdom of allowing such a powerful and permanent leader to become entrenched in the first place would be much better. Additionally, with the 20^th National Congress looming, now is the perfect time to sow doubt among CCP leaders who could, at the very least, pressure Xi to name a successor. This might seem like a small step, yet it would signal that Xi will eventually step down. Additionally, in China, successors help form an alternative node around which power and opposition to a current leader can coalesce.

It is both far too optimistic and simplistic to assume that making Russian leaders face consequences for the invasion of Ukraine will lead to China returning to the regularized transfer of power. Even if it did, that would not ensure Taiwan’s safety. Yet, it is even less realistic to conclude that letting Russia escape consequences would not be seen as a sign that there are few consequences for open belligerence. Making Russia, and in particular its leaders, an example is a bare minimum for maintaining a world committed to peace. That there is an outside chance it could make the CCP, and even the Chinese people, reconsider limits on Xi’s power is a bonus.

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Given the atmospherics, many observers have questioned whether the Russian attack on Ukraine might encourage Chinese leader Xi Jinping to take a harder line on reunification and even try to strong-arm the island’s government to agree to “return to the motherland.” A series of statements and moves first by the Trump administration and more recently the Biden administration also have increased tensions. Adding to the tensions — a series of high-level visits by senior members of Congress, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in August 2022.

This suggests the United States has grown weary of the “one China” policy, is inching toward a “one China, one Taiwan” policy, and is prepared to stand with Taiwan should a crisis erupt. Others have argued that Xi wants to cement his legacy as China’s greatest leader since Mao Zedong by being the man who liberated Taiwan and finally won the Chinese Civil War.

But is there an alternative explanation? Is it possible that Xi is actually playing defense? More specifically, is the goal of China’s pressure campaign not to force Taiwan to return to the motherland but rather to stop it from drifting further away? While it is certainly true that Xi and Chinese nationalists want reunification, they also fear that Taiwan – with the support of the United States, Japan, and others – is contemplating a unilateral declaration of independence.

Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the United States has committed itself to help the island maintain its de facto independence. Successive American administrations have, however, hinted that the United States would not welcome a unilateral declaration of independence but instead favored a negotiated path from de facto to de jure independence for the island – or reunification, if that is what the Taiwanese decide they want. For decades the policy of “strategic ambiguity” served to concurrently warn Taipei against a unilateral declaration of independence and warn Beijing against using military force to bring the island under its control. In short, the United States embraced policies that discouraged both Taipei and Beijing from seeking to change the status quo.

At the same time, the United States welcomed increasing economic, social, and cultural links between the mainland and the island. Things seemed to be moving in the direction of peaceful coexistence. The flow was not toward a rapid political rapprochement and then reunification. On the contrary, President Ma Ying-jeou’s goal seemed to be to placate Beijing with gestures as a means of maintaining the island’s de facto independence and perpetuate the status quo. Ma, whose Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, promoted improved relations with China, was elected president in 2008.

The monkey wrench was, however, that many on the island were unhappy with the flow of jobs and capital to the mainland, and support for reunification was diminishing. In 2014, resentment of the Kuomintang’s policy of détente with the mainland burst into the open during the Sunflower Revolution and helped increase support for Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the point where Tsai won the presidency and the party won a parliamentary majority in the 2016 general elections. Even though Tsai had not advocated independence, in Beijing’s eyes the DPP is hiding its intentions and biding its time, waiting for a signal from Washington to make its move.

And in Beijing’s eyes, Washington has in fact been signaling that it might welcome a bold move by Taipei. It has increased arm sales and weaken the policy of limiting official contacts between the two governments. Anti-Chinese rhetoric has proliferated in Washington and “standing up to Beijing” seems to be the only major thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Thus, from Beijing’s perspective, the commitment of Taipei and Washington to the “one China” policy and its ability to sustain the status quo has become questionable.

In this light, Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the West’s response may have worsened Beijing’s predicament. In 2019, Washington and its allies essentially stood by and let Beijing’s agents in Hong Kong suppress anti-government demonstrations and enact a harsh new national security regime that has silenced and imprisoned critics of the Hong Kong government and Beijing.

In 2022, however, the United States stood by Ukraine, not just rhetorically, but with harsh economic sanctions and billions of dollars in military hardware – the opposite of how the Obama administration reacted to the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and subsequent occupation of the Donbas and Luhansk regions with only condemnations, limited sanctions, and non-lethal military aid, policies that the Trump administration largely continued. Washington also succeeded in rallying its NATO allies and convinced key members to provide substantial military aid. Moscow’s threats to cut off the flow of Russian oil and natural gas failed to drive wedges between Washington and the major European capitals. Backed by western arms, Ukrainian forces pushed back the Russian drive on Kyiv and have stubbornly resisted Russian attacks in the Donbas and the rest of the east. In September 2022, a Ukrainian counteroffensive overran Russian forces in the northeast and seemed to suggest that the tide may have turned against President Putin.

From Beijing’s point of view, the Ukrainian war raises the chances that the Taiwanese could move in the direction of independence if Taipei concludes that the Biden administration considers Taiwan on a par with Ukraine. Beijing has repeatedly made clear that a Taiwan independence declaration would trigger war. Despite the expansion of China’s military capabilities, including the fielding of two aircraft carriers (and the launching of a third), a war would be risky. The Taiwan Strait is a far more formidable barrier than the snow and mud that Russian forces encountered in their failed attack on Kyiv. An attack on the island would be rendered more complicated and victory less certain if the United States came to Taipei’s aid. Conflict over Taiwan, moreover, could rapidly escalate into a much larger war. There is, therefore, a chance that an assault on the island might be thwarted, in which case not only would Beijing face an immediate declaration of independence but, far worse, Xi could become “the man who lost Taiwan.”

Rather than risking that fate, Xi needs to join the line of party leaders who have kept Taiwan from getting away. To this end, he needs to ratchet up the pressure in hopes of signaling to the Biden administration that the mainland opposes any significant change in the island’s status and that if push comes to shove, the mainland will go to war regardless of the risks and costs. Only by threatening war can Xi avoid war. It’s a dangerous game and serves to steadily worsen relations between Beijing and Washington. But it’s a risk Xi must run. Regardless of how much power he may have accumulated over the past decade, it is unlikely he could politically survive the loss of the island.

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