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Considering how much of current American culture war debates revolve around national identity, sovereignty, and international influence, it makes me wonder: are conflicts like Russia’s move into Ukraine and China’s posture towards Taiwan fundamentally rooted in the same security dilemma, rather than pure expansionism?
I’ve been thinking about the deeper drivers behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s stance on Taiwan.
For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border, severely shrinking Russia’s strategic buffer zone. Similarly, for China, the growing U.S. military presence around Taiwan raises a direct security concern.
Since U.S.-China relations have deteriorated, there has been increasing discussion about the possibility of the U.S. deploying missiles or even establishing a permanent military presence in Taiwan. Given Taiwan’s geographic position, major Chinese cities like Fuzhou, Xiamen, and even Shanghai would fall within the range of intermediate-range missiles.
This makes the Taiwan issue not purely about nationalism or ideology, but also about very tangible security calculations.
In 2024, U.S. defense reports indicated a rising focus on “hardening Taiwan” against potential Chinese action（https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/19/2003375866/-1/-1/1/2024-NDS.PDF”
China has repeatedly emphasized that foreign military deployments in Taiwan would cross a “red line”（https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-says-us-should-stop-official-exchanges-with-taiwan-2024-03-05/）
Russia and China's positions on Ukraine and Taiwan are first and foremost based on nationalism and what you could call ethnic sovereignty, and only secondarily based on pragmatic security concerns. You can read Putin's essay on the topic for a pretty clear description of what motivates him. Some excerpts below:
You can see that while the idea that Ukraine is a springboard for foreign powers to threaten Russia geopolitically makes an appearance, issues of national identity take precedence, including the idea that Ukrainian identity itself is a weapon that threatens Russia. This is not the kind of essay an American could or would write about Cuba in 1962, which is a case when there was a strategic threat from a foreign power without any shared ancient history or blood and soil concerns involved.
As for Taiwan, while it is not an ancient part of China the way Ukraine is an ancient part of Russia, its significance is that it is the last piece of territory (with a Han majority) taken from Qing China by foreign powers during the Century of Humiliation that remains outside of PRC control today. The CCP justifies its rule to a domestic audience by claiming that only they can undo the damage done by the Western powers and Japan during those years, firstly by making China too rich and powerful to be invaded or subjugated ever again and secondly by getting back all the territory that was stolen from them, including Taiwan. The fact that Taiwan is part of the First Island Chain with the potential to strangle Chinese naval trade in the event of a war is certainly of interest to their military planners, but it is a distant second in terms of motivations for invading or blockading the island.
I think Americans often have trouble understanding the way nationalists in other parts of the world think because it is quite alien to their own thought process, but imagine for a moment if most Anglo-Canadians were still diehard royalists who held a grudge against the US for expelling their ancestors during the Revolution and for being traitors who deny their true English identity, and would seize on any opportunity to punish them and force them back into the imperial fold. Sure, there might be offshore oil wells, cod fisheries, or Great Lakes ports of strategic importance involved in any dispute, but that's not really what it would be about.
Thank you very much for offering another perspective. However, regarding the part about Taiwan and China, I would like to offer some corrections and additional context.
While Taiwan may not have been historically as integrated with mainland China as Ukraine was with Russia, Taiwan was formally incorporated into Qing China’s territory in 1683 and remained so until it was ceded to Japan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War. Thus, Taiwan does have significant historical connections to China.
In more recent history, during World War II, the Kuomintang (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Chinese Communist Party (led by Mao Zedong) temporarily cooperated to resist the Japanese invasion. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, a civil war broke out between the two sides, ultimately resulting in the Communist Party’s victory and the Kuomintang’s retreat to Taiwan.
Although the PRC initially emphasized the goal of peaceful reunification, over time, shifts in domestic public opinion and strategic considerations have led to increasing support among the general populace for the use of force if necessary. That said, the official position of the PRC still emphasizes “peaceful reunification” under the “one country, two systems” framework.
I’m someone who grew up in China and have just recently reached adulthood, so there may be gaps in my understanding due to my environment and limited experience. If there are any inaccuracies, omissions, or misinterpretations in what I have presented, I would genuinely appreciate any corrections or further discussion. Thank you!<3
I believe you misunderstand.
The Kievan Rus' (or Kyivan Rus', I guess, now) is the first East Slav state founded in the 9th century, and the histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus start from this point (East Slavs having had no language prior to this point). This state was literally dominated by Kiev during its inception. The names of both Russia and Belarus are etymologically derived after this medieval state, and all three East Slavic nations claim descent from it. Ukraine is literally where Russian civilisation starts*.
Taiwan, on the other hand, is first settled by Austronesians and was relatively untouched by the mainland; the first real attempts at settlement beyond that actually came under the Dutch (who encouraged Han migration over to the island), then the portion of Ming remnants led by Zheng Chenggong who founded the Kingdom of Tungning, until its conquest by the Qing. Taiwan's prehistory lasts well into late Chinese imperial history, it was first properly settled under a European banner, and up until the Japanese invasion it remained a pretty marginal borderland — nobody would think much about it if there wasn't another straggler "Chinese" government trying to set up shop there!
A more analogous comparison to Russia and Ukraine, for (a state of) China, would be if it no longer controlled large swathes its cradle of civilisation — if it "lost" parts of the North China Plain including Anyang and Luoyang, say. Maybe consider an alternate timeline where the Ming somehow doesn't reconquer the North China Plain and the Northern Yuan end up setting shop there indefinitely, or the Southern Song don't fall to the Yuan and no Han-dominated state ever is able to claw back land above the Huai river, or the Northern and Southern Dynasties doesn't end with the Sui, or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms permanently entrenched a north-south split, and now a modern alt-Chinese government based in the south, claiming descent from those alt-dynasties, is engaging in a little taste of revanchism some few centuries late by appealing to how northerners and southerners are actually one people and should be ruled together.
Edit: better examples. None of those really match exactly; Moscow actually came into prominence during/after the Mongols, so an even better example would be if somehow the Yuan got pushed into a rump Southern state and centuries later the descendant states of the Southern Yuan decide to march back up, but this is a bit too ludicrous
*also where Ukrainian and Belaroussian history starts — I am not making a case that Kyiv is especially Russian, or that Russia has a good case for invading Ukraine
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