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China's Taiwan ambitions: "Global war is not inevitable, but highly likely"

2022-07-22T03:12:41.830Z


China's Taiwan ambitions: "Global war is not inevitable, but highly likely" Created: 07/22/2022, 05:01 By: Sven Hauberg Xi Jinping visiting troops (archive photo): China's head of state and party leader threatens Taiwan with military conquest. © Li Gang/Xinhua/Imago "China's ambitions go beyond Taiwan," says Alexander Görlach - and warns: If we don't take countermeasures, a new world war is im


China's Taiwan ambitions: "Global war is not inevitable, but highly likely"

Created: 07/22/2022, 05:01

By: Sven Hauberg

Xi Jinping visiting troops (archive photo): China's head of state and party leader threatens Taiwan with military conquest.

© Li Gang/Xinhua/Imago

"China's ambitions go beyond Taiwan," says Alexander Görlach - and warns: If we don't take countermeasures, a new world war is imminent.

Munich – Alexander Görlach is certain: just a small mistake is enough for the Taiwan conflict to turn into a global war.

Therefore, we should not only look at Ukraine, but also at China.

According to the expert on international politics and ethics, the USA is already doing this.

Görlach, on the other hand, is harsh on German China policy: “You are not in a position to change an image of China that you have cultivated for decades.

It was the same with Russia,” he says in an interview with

FR.de

from

IPPEN.MEDIA

.

Mr Görlach, everyone is currently talking about the Ukraine conflict, you are writing a book about Taiwan.

Why - because the crisis that is threatening there could become even more existential?

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping both want to change the established world order.

How they think and how they behave is diametrically opposed to what defines our world today.

Putin is putting this into practice in the most brutal way in Ukraine right now – and Xi is threatening to do so, saying he would like to annex Taiwan to China by force if necessary.

Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we look at the situation between China and Taiwan, which is very similar to that between Russia and Ukraine.

What lessons is the Chinese leadership drawing from the Russian actions in Ukraine?

China sees that the Russian army has not progressed as it had imagined.

You have to know that the Russian army is helping the Chinese with their modernization – especially in the “special area of ​​annexation, land grabbing and occupation”, to put it bluntly.

Russia has gained a lot of experience in this field since the attack on Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, China not since the occupation of Tibet.

That's why Beijing is watching closely why the Russian attack on Ukraine is going so badly.

Alexander Görlach is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York and an honorary professor of ethics and theology at the University of Lüneburg.

He also conducts research on technology and democracy at the University of Oxford.

He recently published the books "Red Alert: How China's aggressive foreign policy in the Pacific is leading to a global war" and "Focus on Hong Kong: Why the future of the free world is being decided in China".

© David Elmes

What else is Beijing learning?

The Russians underestimated the resilience of the Ukrainian population.

Beijing is now seeing what happens when the people of a country it has attacked don't stand by the side of the road and chant "Hosanna".

However, I believe that this will not change China's long-term strategy of forcibly annexing Taiwan.

In security circles, the year 2027 is mentioned as the date of a possible invasion, because then the military reform in the People's Republic will be completed.

In my opinion, however, it is not possible to say so specifically, because other factors are also decisive.

For example, the question of how the Taiwanese military is preparing for the threat from China at the same time.

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The Taiwan Conflict

China regards Taiwan as a "renegade province" and threatens to conquer the island state militarily.

The conflict goes back to the Chinese civil war: after the victory of the communists under Mao Zedong, the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek withdrew to Taiwan in 1949;

While the "People's Republic of China" was proclaimed on the mainland, the "Republic of China" founded in 1912 lives on in Taiwan.

In recent years, China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping has intensified his rhetoric towards Taiwan, which is only recognized by very few governments worldwide.

Germany, too, maintains only informal relations with the government in the capital, Taipei.

Unlike the People's Republic, Taiwan is a democracy;

President Tsai Ing-wen has ruled the country since 2016.

China: "Xi Jinping follows the rule book of every dictatorship"

The subtitle of your current book "Red Alert" is: "How China's aggressive foreign policy in the Pacific leads to a global war".

Why would the Taiwan conflict develop into a world war?

China's ambitions go beyond Taiwan.

You can see that, for example, in the conflict with the Philippines over a number of islands in the South China Sea.

The International Court of Justice has affirmed that China has no claim to the Spratly Islands.

Nevertheless, they keep mercenaries occupied by Beijing's grace.

In addition, Beijing is militarizing the Western Pacific and has passed a law that says: We can shoot at any ship that gets in our way in “our sea”.

If a mistake happens in such a heated atmosphere, for example if China invades Taiwanese airspace again, the situation escalates. 

However, an escalation would not necessarily be in China's interest...

That's right, China doesn't necessarily want to escalate.

A global war is not inevitable, but it is highly likely - at least unless we do something about it.

Because everything that China is currently doing leads to a situation similar to what we saw in Europe in the 19th century: in the end, offended great powers find themselves on a battlefield - in this case it is the western Pacific - and even have no choice but to fight each other.

Xi also follows the rule book of any dictatorship: you need external enemies against whom you hold the inside together;

at the same time, you have to make sure that there are no internal movements.

This is why dictatorial societies often become paranoid and obsessed with control and punishment.

About IPPEN.MEDIA

The IPPEN.MEDIA network is one of the largest online publishers in Germany.

At the locations in Berlin, Hamburg/Bremen, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart and Vienna, journalists from our central editorial office research and publish for more than 50 news offers.

These include brands such as Merkur.de, FR.de and BuzzFeed Germany.

Our news, interviews, analyzes and comments reach more than 5 million people in Germany every day.

In addition, China's economy is currently weakening - and economic growth has so far been the main legitimacy for the government in Beijing.

In China, there is a cold, Anglo-Saxon capitalism of British-American provenance that has burst the social fabric of society.

The question is whether a country in this situation can do nothing but go to war.

China is pursuing a dual strategy in Asia that is not seen in Russia.

On the one hand, there is the global economy, which China legitimately wants to help shape.

China sees itself as an actor that does not follow all the rules, but sticks to many, because it understands that there is something it can gain, namely prosperity.

The same China that wants global trade is at the same time hegemonic, colonial and imperial on the move and asserting its claims to power militarily.

“China certainly has other options than invading Taiwan”

At the same time, the radiance of Western values ​​seems to be fading around the world.

Only 45 percent of the people currently live in a democracy.

What we call democratic values ​​are on the rise around the world.

This is backed up by data from the World Value Survey Association.

These numbers may continue to rise, precisely as dictatorships such as China's and Russia's are showing humanity what a terrible alternative it is to a democracy based on human dignity.

This applies to all cultures, because nobody in the world wants to be tortured or thrown into prison innocently.

Therefore, liberty will triumph over tyranny.

Xi Jinping has been threatening to invade Taiwan for years.

Has he put himself in a position from which there is no turning back?

In general, as long as the future hasn't happened, it's not the case.

But one thing is also clear: Based on what Xi Jinping has said and announced, sooner or later he will have to do something that he can present as a solution to the Taiwan question.

He can't go back - but how he resolves these entanglements he has gotten himself into is yet to be decided.

China certainly has other options than invading Taiwan.

For example, Xi could annex some of the smaller islands that belong to Taiwan but lie very close to the Chinese coast and declare this as a rejection of the “American imperialist class enemy” – i.e. a victory.

In conformist societies without a free press, dictators can spread their fake news unhindered. 

The US does not recognize Taiwan, but supports it with arms deliveries and leaves open whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack - the so-called "strategic ambiguity" ...

US President Biden has recently hinted that the US would support Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

The One China Policy states that Taiwan can only enter into an alliance with the People's Republic peacefully and without coercion.

All the US President is saying now is: If China were to annex Taiwan by force, then we have an obligation to support Taiwan in view of this one-China policy!

The fact that Washington has abandoned its strategic ambiguity is a signal to the People's Republic that an invasion of Taiwan would not be as easy as imagined a few years ago.

“Germany is not in a position to change an image of China that has been cultivated for decades.

It was the same with Russia.”

What does it mean for security in Europe when the US focuses on Asia?

I don't think that's a departure from Europe, but rather an acknowledgment of geopolitical reality.

In 2050, only four percent of the population will live in the classic old world.

At the same time, there are many countries in the Far East - Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia - that belong to our political and ethical hemisphere.

The US has already broadened its view of the world, and it would do us Europeans good to do the same.

To understand that our options for action and alliances are far greater than we previously thought.

We can no longer just think “small-Atlantic”, as we did in the past.

In Germany there is little evidence of this...

Germany is not the spearhead of the movement in anything!

In the Franco-German tandem, it was noticed during Emmanuel Macron's first term in office that papers were being produced in the Élysée Palace that were all ignored in Berlin.

Under Olaf Scholz, Berlin is just as free of ambition, imagination and design as it was under the aegis of Angela Merkel.

Also in relation to Taiwan?

Yes, you can see that when you look at Taiwan.

The US has also abandoned its strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan because the Russian attack on Ukraine has shown that one cannot remain neutral towards dictatorships.

In its “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, the United Nations has pointed out that invasions of other countries and genocide are not an internal matter of a state, but such crimes against humanity concern the entire human family.

In Germany, unlike in the USA, there is a certain laziness in thinking.

One is unable to change an image of China that has been cultivated for decades.

It was the same with Russia.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-07-22

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