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So how bad was it? Donald Trump’s remarks on Taiwan, after his visit to Beijing, have been pored over for clues to the future of the island.
The US president equivocated about possible future arms sales to Taiwan — portraying them as a bargaining chip in talks with Beijing. He sounded sceptical about the idea that the US could ever really defend Taiwan. And he repeated his tired charge that the Taiwanese had “stolen” their semiconductor industry from America.
In Taiwan, these remarks are likely to be seen as alarming. In Beijing, they will be regarded as encouraging signs that Trump is backing away from the unequivocal support for the island expressed by President Joe Biden.
But the concentration on the bilateral conversation between Xi and Trump is missing a crucial point. Decisions made in Washington and Beijing are vital to the future of Taiwan. But they are not the last word.
Taiwan is not a colony or an uninhabited island, whose future can be negotiated away by outsiders. If the Taiwanese continue to resist the idea of coerced incorporation into mainland China, they have an excellent chance of success — with or without American support.
The current wars in Ukraine and Iran underline how foolish it is to assume that a military superpower, like Russia or the US, will always win a war against a smaller country or economy.
More than four years into the conflict, Ukraine is still holding off Russia. It is true that the Ukrainians have received substantial military and financial assistance from the US and Europe. But the troops that are holding the line are all Ukrainians. And the drones that now account for the majority of the casualties in Putin’s armies — as well as the deep-strike missiles that are hitting Russian infrastructure — are manufactured by Ukrainians. The Iranian regime, meanwhile, has confounded American and Israeli hopes of bringing about swift regime change.
Both Ukraine and Iran are benefiting from a transformation in warfare brought about by new technologies, in particular drones, and the development of long-range missiles. Ukraine, which has no navy of its own, has basically forced the Russian navy out of the Black Sea. Trump often claims that the Iranian navy has been entirely destroyed. If so, it is all the more remarkable that Tehran can keep the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed — by threatening shipping with a combination of drones, missiles and military speedboats.
Given that China would have to attempt one of the most ambitious seaborne invasions in history to conquer Taiwan, the increasing vulnerability of navies to new forms of warfare should cause real anxiety in Beijing.
Taiwan also has strengths that were not available to either Ukraine or Iran. It would go into a war as one of the richest and most technologically advanced economies in the world. Taken on its own, the island of 23mn people ranks just outside the top 20 largest global economies. It is also a technology superpower, producing more than 90 per cent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.
The weapons that Taiwan wants to buy from the US — including air defence systems — would be hugely helpful in deterring China. But the Taiwanese already produce their own anti-ship missiles and drones.
Taiwan also has the advantage of being an island and so benefits from the “stopping power of water” which has historically helped Britain ward off foreign invasions.
However, the island status that protects Taiwan also makes it more vulnerable to a blockade. If China succeeded in sealing off the island, the Taiwanese might run out of natural gas supplies within weeks and oil within months. But blockades require ships and planes that are vulnerable to missiles and mines.
Energy and food rationing would also strengthen the island’s ability to resist, potentially for several months. The critical role that Taiwan plays in global supply chains means that a prolonged Chinese blockade would massively disrupt the world economy. That would increase the chances that foreign powers would eventually feel compelled to intervene — either through sanctions or by military means.
Even if Beijing were able to use a blockade to force Taiwan into talks or outright surrender, the Chinese Communist Party would still face the problem of trying to impose a dictatorship on a vibrant democracy with a distinct identity, nurtured over many decades. As a new paper by Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette suggests, this would require decades of repression and would be likely to lead to prolonged resistance.
The idea that Taiwan could stand up to Beijing on its own is one that official China finds hard to grasp. I have sometimes been told in Beijing that — deep down — the Taiwanese understand they are really Chinese. It is only the mischievous Americans who are encouraging them to resist the motherland.
These arguments are uncomfortably reminiscent of the views that I heard expressed in Moscow, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s Russian nationalism meant that he could not accept that Ukrainians genuinely did not want to be ruled from Moscow — and would fight for their freedom.
That failure of imagination led Russia to disaster in Ukraine. A similar failure in Beijing could lead China to disaster in Taiwan.
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