Military maneuvers around Taiwan: Is the Ukraine war the blueprint for a war over Taiwan? And how should we approach autocratic China and democratic Taiwan? Answers from the Green Party’s China expert, Reinhard Bütikofer.
US No. 3 Nancy Pelosi stayed in Taipei and since then, Red China has been staging the biggest military maneuvers around Taiwan ever??. What makes things so dangerous is the upcoming Communist Party convention, at which Xi, the leader of the Communist Party, wants to be crowned head of China for life. For that he needs an achievement. Does success mean Taiwan?
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The Cold War between, yes between what at all – the two Chinas, the two states, the two countries? – has lasted for 60 years. The Cold Peace was called the “Status Quo” and the whole world hoped that this state of affairs, which we know here from our Cold War days as the “Balance of Terror”, would last forever.
But he hasn’t, at least since Xi made a kind of oath to bring Taiwan “home” by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the state at the latest. So that would be in 27 years, which can also mean: tomorrow, at least during Xi’s term of office.
Authoritarian China, formerly called “Red China” because of the one-party rule of the communists, considers democratic China to be a breakaway province and the problem is that almost the whole rest of the world sees it the same way under international law. The name for this oddity is the One China Policy. The Federal Republic of Germany has also committed itself to this, as has the USA, without whose military protection Taiwan would no longer exist as a democratic island.
Taiwan is a vibrant democracy, with parliament and the press free, free elections and an independent judiciary, the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. Taiwan has everything that China doesn’t have, and that’s the biggest threat to the Chinese.
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In a sentence: Taiwan is very living proof that Chinese democracy is possible.
And on every state visit by a German chancellor, whether male or female, the respective Chinese mandarin has explained why the Western model poses a danger to the land of the rising sun. For example, because the reliable feeding of a population of billions is more important than a political model that culturally does not fit China anyway.
And all German chancellors were satisfied with this declaration, not a single one, certainly not Angela Merkel, who was much more fixated on economic growth than on human rights, pointed to a free Taiwan – this very realistic negation of the main Chinese thesis.
Seen from Germany, China is far away, the same applies to Taiwan. And yet both countries are very close. And they are all dependent, everyone on everyone, without exception. The Germans need China’s market to sell their VWs there, and Taiwan’s chips to be able to build their VWs at all. The Taiwanese chips also need the Chinese.
The greatest concern of the Americans is that Beijing will absorb Taipei and with it the Taiwanese chip industry, which is the world market leader. Then the USA, like the rest of the world, could be blackmailed by China. That’s the horror vision, and that’s exactly why Pelosi visited the Taiwanese chip industry. And now there are these maneuvers. What attitude should one take towards this?
On Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, the FAZ captions its commentary with a rhetorical question: “Was it worth it?” Halle political scientist Johannes Varwick doubts “whether it’s wise to take on Russia and China at the same time.” Because: “We achieve nothing – but we put our prosperity at risk and risk war. It doesn’t get any dumber.” Major commentator Thomas Friedman called Pelosi’s visit “dangerous and irresponsible” in the left-liberal New York Times. And Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian, also a leftist paper, in Taiwan, as in Ukraine, “the West flirts with doom”.
Demand from Reinhard Bütikofer, the former leader of the Greens and today’s foreign, especially China, expert from the European Parliament.
FOCUS online: Shouldn’t Pelosi really have to provoke the Chinese like that?
Bütikofer: The conflict over Taiwan has basically existed for many decades. The fact that it is currently getting worse is not because Nancy Pelosi is traveling there with a delegation, but because of China’s increasingly aggressive, nationalist policies under Xi Jinping.
And what does Xi want?
Bütikofer: Xi wants to persuade the whole world that China’s forced incorporation of Taiwan is historically inevitable, and he wants to do that during his tenure as party leader. Any solidarity with democratic Taiwan is therefore branded as a provocation.
How should democracies react?
Bütikofer: If democracies were to submit to this reading, it would not promote stability or even peace, but would make a Chinese military adventure against Taiwan more likely. Haven’t we learned from the case of Ukraine that ignoring or glossing over an autocrat’s imperialist policies leaves dangerously much room for aggression? We shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
So: Solidarity with Taiwan because it’s a democracy?
Bütikofer: Solidarity towards Taiwan is part of it when we talk about democracy standing together worldwide. And yes, despite the danger of the conflict over Taiwan, a war there, the dangers of which many are now talking about, can be avoided if Beijing succeeds in making it very clear that it would have to pay an extraordinarily high price itself in the event of such an attack.
Does Germany need a different China policy?
Bütikofer: It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Germany needs a China policy that arms itself against the risks that emanate from there. We can no longer afford to be economically dependent on a regime that is willing to forge weapons against us. We also learned that from the example of the Ukraine war.
Final question, more to ourselves, searching: But can we afford “no dependencies on China”?
