As policymakers and analysts evaluate the war in Europe for insights that might be applicable to Asia, they are reaching three early conclusions: It should serve as a cautionary tale for China, a model for Taiwan, and a playbook for the United States. But what if the conflict yields a more ominous set of lessons — lessons that Beijing could use to seize the island democracy?

Many observers have become more skeptical that China would launch an assault on its “wayward province” after seeing Russia struggle on the battlefield and suffer an economic backlash. Some have become more optimistic that Taiwan could defend its de facto sovereignty as Ukraine imposes heavy costs on invading forces. And others have become more confident that the United States can rely on “integrated deterrence” to manage the threat of Chinese aggression, which was beginning to appear close at hand.

Yet the war in Europe might instead convince Chinese leaders to double down on efforts to shatter Taiwan’s will to resist should deterrence break down. Indeed, Russian failures and Ukrainian successes to date might incentivize China to issue threats and use force earlier to make U.S. military intervention less likely and Taiwanese capitulation more so.

Washington, DC, August 15, 2020 – Given the rapid pace of change in Asia during the last 20 years, assessing China’s longer-term trajectory represents a huge challenge for allied security planners.  Despite the geostrategic disruptions of the 21st century thus far, Western policymakers continue to rely upon the same periodic defense assessment principles that were practiced during the relatively stable Cold War period.  The policies that result must frequently be revised, often at great cost, in the face of frequent economic, political, and technological upheavals in Asia.

On the other hand, the PLAN’s burgeoning surface fleet is predicted to alter the naval balance in maritime Asia, said a 2017 report co-authored by James R. Holmes of the U.S. Naval War College and Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). The report said that China’s rapid production of advanced warships in recent years, such as the Type 055 cruisers, is not a coincidence and was almost certainly “designed, developed, and procured” many years in advance…“China has laid the basis for a competition that will be measured in decades,” write Holmes and Yoshihara. “The United States and its allies must accept reality: they face a long-term rivalry at sea against a tough, determined, imaginative competitor.”

A2/AD is most commonly discussed in relation to China’s efforts to deny America the ability to intervene in any regional conflict or make it so costly that Washington is deterred from doing so. Some observers, including James Holmes, Toshi Yoshihara and Andrew Krepinevich, have argued that the United States and its Asian allies should this strategy around on China. Instead of seeking to maintain command of the sea and air as America has traditionally done, these scholars suggest Washington and its allies could simply seek to deny China the ability to achieve its goals. As Beckley puts it, “Under this strategy, the United States would abandon efforts to command maritime East Asia and, instead, focus on helping China’s neighbors deny China sea and air control in the region.

China annexes the South China Sea with the “Cabbage Strategy.” An interview with Toshi Yoshihara, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment.

China’s assertiveness has already stimulated a series of regional realignments that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.