Days ahead of a referendum that could result in the loss of the southern territory of Crimea to Russia, Taiwan, which like Ukraine lives in the shadow of a great power, is watching closely to see whether Moscow’s gambit could embolden Beijing to adopt similar strategies toward the island democracy.
While Crimea serves as an
imperfect analogy for Taiwan’s situation, there are enough parallels to warrant
an exploration of the current crisis and its denouement to determine if they
can possibly create a precedent for Chinese behavior. Key to this effort is the
fact that both Moscow and Beijing have notions of the “Near Abroad”—that is,
territories that, while foreign and sovereign, their governments regard as fair
game.
Sunday’s
referendum, which will occur under the shadow of the Russian military, only presents two options: “Are you in favor of the
reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation?” and
“Are you in favor of restoring the 1992 Constitution and the status of Crimea
as a part of Ukraine?”—a Constitution that for all intents and purposes would
give rise to an independent, albeit pro-Moscow, state within Ukraine.
The
situation in Taiwan, which according to Beijing’s version of history was
“stolen” from China at the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, is
vaguely similar, though the proportion of citizens who identify as ethnically
Chinese is substantially lower than that of Crimeans who identify as Russians.
Support for unification with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has
dropped steadily over the years, now stands in the single digits, while desire
for independence has gradually risen, with a preference for maintaining the
status quo remaining the preferred option—at least as long as China threatens
force should the island declare de jureindependence, a not insignificant factor in poll
responses.
While circumstantial, it is
interesting to note that both Crimea and Taiwan are haunted by the year
1992—the “1992 Constitution” and the “1992 Consensus”—under arrangements that
are meant to curtail the choices of the peoples involved (under the so-called
1992 consensus, both sides agree that there is only one China, though both
agree to disagree on what “one China” means).
Ultimately,
support figures on unification do not matter much to the undemocratic regimes
who claim the territories. As long as there are groups within the regions that
identify as ethnically Russian or Chinese—hence Beijing’s emphasis on the
shared ancestry of Chinese “compatriots” across the Taiwan Strait and claims
that independence supporters are a “small group of extremists”—their
governments will be able to justify taking military action as a defensive, if
not humanitarian, measure. As journalist Edward Lucas writes in The New Cold War,
“It is always possible that the Kremlin will start provocations in Crimea or
the Baltic states, and then claim the right to intervene to protect compatriots
from the depredations of ‘extremists.’” This is exactly what Moscow has
articulated in recent weeks, arguing that the troop deployments were in
response to the Ukrainian ultranationalists who took over in Kiev following the
revolution.
Western inaction is being
noted by Beijing, which has sided with Russia in the present crisis. Those are
issues where, bluntly put, perceived weakness invites aggression, and where a
lack of self-confidence among the alliance of democratic nations is resulting
in the dismemberment of free countries.
What is truly worrying when it comes to Taiwan is the fact that
these developments occur at a time of intensifying Chinese pressure on Taipei,
which is being compelled into signing various agreements that risk being
detrimental to Taiwan’s ability to retain its sovereign status. While the
détente witnessed during President Ma Ying-jeou’s first term (2008-2012) mostly
touched on nonpolitical issues such as cross-Strait trade, tourism,
crime-fighting, banking and so on, his second (and last) term, which coincides
with the rise of Xi Jinping, has been plagued by controversy as the public
grows increasingly wary of the political undertones of the next series of
agreements sought by Beijing. Facing elevated opposition by legislators and
civil society, the Ma administration has hardened its line with increased
reliance on law enforcement to counter peaceful protesters and has frequently
made a travesty of public hearings and other mechanisms associated with liberal
democracies. This, in turn, has served to exacerbate frustrations within the
country, with possible repercussions for social stability.
Another
factor is the emergence on the political scene of gangster Chang An-le, a former head of the Bamboo Union
triad who lived in exile on China for seventeen years before returning to
Taiwan in June 2013. A most-wanted fugitive and evidently Beijing’s stooge,
Chang, who is also known as the “White Wolf,” heads the Unification Party,
which among other things sells the purported virtues of “peaceful unification”
and preaches a strong Chinese identity. Since his return, Chang and his
followers have already used threats and intimidation to shape the political
scene, while striking alliances with like-minded and more conservative members of
the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). While its chances of seeing its
candidates elected in local or national elections are next to nil, Chang’s
Unification Party nevertheless adds a considerable strain on the island’s tense
ethnic politics and risks exacerbating social instability by sparking cycles of
retributive violence.
While this
remains an unlikely scenario, growing disillusionment with political
institutions and heightened fears that current trends could curtail their
ability to determine their destiny could eventually compel Taiwanese to take
action which risks destabilizing the government. Recent incidents, such as the crashing of
a thirty-five-tonne truck into the Presidential Office by a disgruntled former
Air Force officer, are a sign that things are coming to a boil, with escalation
all the more likely between now and 2016, when the next presidential elections
are scheduled.
Should
Taiwanese decide that their country’s democracy is no longer sufficient to
protect their interests and adopt nonpeaceful means to resolve the matter, the
resulting instability would provide Chinese with justification to intervene
militarily, especially if the situation deteriorated to such a degree that
Beijing judged it warranted conjuring the Anti-Secession Law, which “permits” use of force if
events threaten eventual unification. As in South Ossetia and Crimea, China
could call upon its surrogates in Taiwan—people like Chang—to sow instability.
Using the tremendous propaganda machine at its disposal and allies on the
island, Beijing could mirror Moscow’s own “defensive” rationale and argue that
it was “provoked” into intervention to protect ethnic Chinese from the
depredations of extremists and “in defense of its legitimate rights to security
and prosperity,” as Denny Roy precisely put it in his recent book Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security.
The West’s failure to intervene over Georgia already set a
dangerous precedent. Should they again neglect to fulfill their
responsibilities toward weaker members of the international community, this
time over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies could find
themselves confronting a similar situation, this time in East Asia, where the
stakes could be much, much higher.
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based journalist, a Senior Fellow at
the China Policy Institute University of Nottingham, a graduate in War Studies
from the Royal Military College of Canada and a former analyst at the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service.
