Those arguing for a more conciliatory stance in the face of China’s escalations towards Taiwan are playing a dangerous game, writes J. Michael Cole in this new article for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Inside Policy.
Any hopes of a peaceful unification between Taiwan and Beijing should China mobilize against the democratic island are naive. More likely, he believes, is that a bloodbath would result .
A “one country, two systems” solution such as was attempted in Hong Kong is simply not feasible, he argues.
Cole lays out the stakes:
“It is impossible to imagine that, once having annexed Taiwan and busted its ramparts as a key element within the First Island Chain, Beijing would leave it undefended. The logic of empire being what it is, the acquisition of new territory is inevitably followed by the securitization and militarization of that real estate, which in turn cannot but alarm neighbours, spark a security dilemma, and lead to an arms race.”
Neither would the West’s own problems with China be solved if we were to abandon Taiwan, he writes.
“The abandonment of one of Asia’s great success stories in democratization, of a country whose economy is increasingly important to ongoing efforts to build a new global supply chain as an alternative to the current one (which has become unhealthily reliant on a mercantilist authoritarian giant), would be as foolish as it would be self-defeating…it would also demonstrate collective weakness in the face of aggression. It would reward rules-breaking and belligerence, empowering a political party that not only represses its own people, but that, arguably, constitutes the greatest danger to international stability and the rules-based order,” he writes.
