When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was much speculation that China would now also invade Taiwan. With China’s vehement reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week, that moment suddenly seems close. China is conducting heavy military exercises close to the coast, imposing sanctions and conducting a wide-ranging diplomatic offensive. Is it preparing a war? That’s unlikely.
As China grows stronger, it will defend its interests more and more assertively. Escalation is part of that. In doing so, it signals to other countries that it is prepared to go far. It drives up the costs of meddling with Taiwan and thus changes the considerations of those countries going forward. Still, there are limits to how far China will go.
For China, Taiwan is an indisputable part of the country that should one day be united with China. For the United States, Taiwan is a crucial ally, with which it can counter China’s global expansion off its own coast. As long as the US has the military capability to defend Taiwan, there is a stalemate. Beijing knows how strong the US is militarily and also knows that the longer you wait, the stronger China’s position becomes. It is therefore unwise to intervene early. You shouldn’t, in the words of a Chinese professor, knock over the whole chessboard for a single piece. China plays a complex game of chess.
Geopolitical conflict has become limitless. The first book that made a good analysis of this was already written in 1999, by two Chinese soldiers, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. In the Gulf War of 1990-1991 they saw the beginning of Unrestricted Warfare, the title of their book. Even then they realized that there is nothing in the world that cannot become a weapon: a stock crash, a computer virus or a rumor about a leader. All the components of a classic conflict – the battlefield, the soldiers and the instruments – have become limitless. Their analysis is still very topical.
What, according to the authors, is the great secret of the new warfare? Combination. They talk about combinations of old and new weapons, but especially about the thousands of possibilities when domains and actors are combined.
The authors make this idea more specific with a mysterious concept of ‘principle and side’. The side is a kind of quip, an adaptation on a principle that allows the opponent to be overpowered. If the sword is the principle of attack, then the side is the angle at which the sword can deal damage effortlessly. So it’s a way of not attacking head-on. That is especially important against a stronger adversary, such as the US is to China.
We are already seeing Russia conduct the conflict on multiple stages, from energy and food to a diplomatic offensive in developing countries. China is much more intertwined with the rest of the world and therefore has many more options.
A number of options can already be distinguished around Taiwan. Diplomatic for example. China frames Pelosi’s visit as meddling by a rich and powerful country in the internal affairs of another country. This puts China on the same side as all developing countries.
Also particularly important in the case of Taiwan is the chip industry. Robert O. Work, the former US secretary of defense, said earlier on chips that for the US there is a 110-mile difference between two generations ahead of China and two generations behind. That distance refers to the Taiwan Strait and what would happen if China took control of Taiwan’s chip industry.
These are two examples of principles by which China can attack the international chessboard indirectly and indirectly. Yes, the country is becoming more and more threatening and it will try step by step to annex Taiwan. But it is more likely that it will attack not frontally, but from the side.
On the one hand, that is good news. It makes a bloody war less likely. But China is connected to the rest of the world in infinite ways; it is an economic superpower in, for example, rare earth metals, solar panels, medicines and digital technology. By attacking sideways, it could cause far more disruption than Russia is doing now. Not invasion, but lateral disruption is the real link between Ukraine and Taiwan. China will not knock over the chessboard. But it’s been more than twenty years to come up with strategies with unexpected combinations. How well are we prepared for that?
Haroon Sheikh is a senior researcher at the WRR and professor by special appointment at the VU. Luuk van Middelaar is absent this week.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 10, 2022