Taiwan Can Benefit From Watching Ukraine

The China Academy: Beijing has repeatedly said taiwan is a part of china, but military engagement is not what beijing is looking for, but the issue at hand is, should there be continued provocation from the US, what’s going to happen then?

Kishore Mahbubani: I think there’s no question that the Taiwan issue is the most dangerous issue in the US-China relationship. Because certainly, if either Taiwan moves towards declaring independence, or if the United States moves towards recognizing Taiwan as an independent country, that will be seen in the eyes of China to be a declaration of war. So clearly it is a dangerous issue. But at the same time, what is strange about Donald Trump is that even though he’s been a real estate businessman all his life, he is someone who doesn’t like wars. In fact, he said categorically that he was the first president not to start a war during his first presidency from 2016 to 2020. I think Donald Trump himself is particularly afraid of a nuclear war. He said so. This is what he told president Zelinsky that It was irresponsible of him to possibly trigger a nuclear war between Russia and the West. So clearly, he doesn’t want anything that approaches like a nuclear war. So I think Donald Trump, who’s not of an ideological bent, is not inclined to use Taiwan as a weapon in the US China contest. His main goal is to in one way or another, help the working classes in America to bringing back manufacturing in America. But he’s not interested in starting a war. So I don’t see president Donald Trump himself using the Taiwan issue as a card in the US China relationship.

The China Academy: What about Trump’s  administration?

Kishore Mahbubani: Well, President trump’s administration, President trump doesn’t like the word diversity, because the democrats like to use the word diversity. But paradoxically, he has a very diverse cabinet. Within this cabinet, there are people who are isolationist, who believe that America should come home and not get involved in issues like Taiwan. And certainly President trump doesn’t want to get involved in issues like Taiwan. But there are also people in his administration, people like maybe Marco Rubio, who believes that the US should be the number one power and to stop all other powers from rising, including China. So you’re right. Then maybe some elements in his administration that may want to possibly create problems with China. But I think President Trump himself will be very careful on the political front.

I think it’s very important for the people of Taiwan to study what happened in Ukraine very carefully. Because at the end of the day, geopolitics is a very cruel business, very very cruel. If small states or medium sized states like Ukraine allow themselves to be used as proxies in geopolitical struggles, the proxy suffers. The great powers don’t suffer. So for example, the Europeans who are encouraging Ukraine to fight against Russia, they are happy to fight russia to the last Ukrainian, but they’re not gonna send any Europeans to die, to defend Ukraine. So clearly, it is very unwise for any country to be used as a proxy or any territory to be used as a proxy in such a contest. That’s why the people of Taiwan should really try and study Ukraine very, very carefully, because they will learn some powerful lessons from it.

Editor: Zhiyu Wang