For anybody who believes that allowing the Chinese Communist Party to take control of Taiwan will sate its expansionist desires and usher in an era of global stability, its recent actions in Bhutan, the Philippines and elsewhere should be a wake up call.
When seeing China as a rational geopolitical entity rather than an entitled, greedy and paranoid dictatorship with the same flaws as any other, some emphasize the reasonableness of its goal to take over Taiwan. From this perspective, Taiwan is viewed in absolutist terms as an extension of the U.S., not a democratic entity with a fluid approach to international relations guided by voters who actually live there, and Beijing’s territorial covetousness is indulged either as a form of perceived self-defense or, at least, a position worth accommodating for other strategic ends.
By this logic, only by incorporating Taiwan can the Chinese Communist Party feel total agency and safety at home, which, overlooking the blatant solipsism and background tyranny of the context, are regarded as acceptable desires. Therefore, peace will reign if it is allowed to subordinate Taipei, and, while the world may feel sadness at condemning more than 20 million more people to mass human rights abuses, it is ultimately the right thing to do for the greater good.
This ignores many realities: Taiwan’s slow reversal of military decline is aimed at defense. The country is not in any way poised or minded to attack its much larger neighbor, and its government has moved on significantly from yesteryear’s nationalist dictatorship that considered itself the rightful heir to the governance of all China, too. Unlike Okinawa, it is no longer the site of a U.S. military base, either. None of this has lowered the threat of war from Beijing.
Incorporation of Taiwan under Chinese Communist Party rule would also push the latter’s sphere of control right up to the Philippines, where the U.S. will be directly present. So, should Taipei cede to Beijing control, the superpower fault line might shift slightly, but it certainly would not vanish. Manila’s Batanes Islands are just over 100 miles from Taiwan. How long could China President Xi Jinping tolerate such proximity?
And this highlights a point so obvious that it should hardly need to be made: Taiwan is already nowhere near the outer edge of China’s territorial avarice. Beijing’s claims to the resource-rich South China Sea are a work in progress, and its aggression to cement annexation of large parts of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone to the west of Palawan during 2023 have proven that its overall aims are far more ambitious than the elimination of Taiwan independence.
Indeed, at great ecological cost, it has already permanently dug its military into locations far south of Taiwan like Mischief Reef, while the actions of its maritime militia, which have recently included the ramming of Filipino vessels and deployment of acoustic weapons, lasers and water cannons, have left little room for further escalation without constituting an unambiguous act of war. Moreover, as recently as December 20, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) threatened his counterpart in Manila of consequences if the Philippines “obstinately chooses its own course,” i.e. acts according to the sovereign interests of a democratically elected government instead of China’s dictatorship.
Granted, some will argue that China’s activities around the Philippines are not aimed at Manila itself, but to minimize military risks and losses during a takeover of Taiwan. Again, this would indicate that tensions would simmer down if Taipei was ruled by Beijing, which would have less need for an aggressive southwards stance once what it considers to be its rightful territory has been consolidated. However, China has long asserted territorial claims that stretch as far as Malaysia and Brunei. Aided and abetted by academics and Hollywood alike, all it takes is for its rulers to designate another slice of the Pacific Ocean as an inalienable part of the motherland, and the maritime grab will roll on.
China’s behavior elsewhere in the world illustrates the point. Having invaded Tibet and subjected it to colonial rule since 1950, the Chinese Communist Party still does not consider its present boundary to the west to be finalized. Not to mention violent disputes with India, it has walked over the existing border with Bhutan, built its own facilities there and is currently leveraging the massive power differential between itself and the Bhutanese capital of Thimphu to negotiate an official redrawing of the line between the two countries. Again, this will not lower the risk of it locking horns with New Delhi. Neither is it intended to do so.
Elsewhere along the Tibet border, a report by a Nepali government taskforce that was passed to the BBC in 2022 alleged that the Chinese government was engaging in its signature religious repression and obstruction of pastoralists in a place known as Lalungjong, which is supposedly ruled by Kathmandu. And possession of East Turkestan (Xinjiang), another Chinese colony, has not satisfied Beijing’s claims to Tajikistan’s Pamir mountains. On the contrary, despite having received some 1,158 square kilometers of the region just over a decade ago, China appears to be reawakening demands for more.
These add to festering disputes over land and sea with other neighboring countries that include Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, the latter of which resulted in broken bones this year; an expanding portfolio of naval safe houses in countries like Cambodia; a sleeper presence in the U.S.’s core digital infrastructure; and even, since August 2023, an opportunistic renewal of attempts to hack a few kilometers away from Russia.
Transparently, these are not the activities of a state that would be satisfied by establishing authority over Taiwan. Far more realistically, Chinese Communist Party rulership of the island would be seen as a stepping stone for future acquisitions and an encouragement to indulge its thirst for power with targets creeping further and further afield. Who knows? Given Beijing’s broadening activities at the South Pole and habit of rewriting history, perhaps generations of the future will be discussing the merits of Antarctica as an “inseparable part” of the Middle Kingdom.
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