As Russian President Vladimir Putin intensifies his assault on Ukraine, a growing number of U.S. military and foreign policy analysts are voicing concern that China may be emboldened by Russia’s example and try to take Taiwan by force. “If Russia can grab chunks of Ukraine or install a puppet regime and withstand economic sanctions, that could embolden nationalists in China to look to Taiwan and think they could do the same,” Ian Johnson, a China expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, has argued. Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, made a similar argument in an interview last month, as did retired Army General Jack Keane, who said that Chinese President Xi Jinping sees “weakness in the West and how that can advantage him in terms of his national objectives as well.”
Xi is certainly watching events in Ukraine, but his calculus for whether to use force against Taiwan is shaped primarily by domestic factors, not foreign ones. As I have argued in Foreign Affairs, Chinese leaders are considering “armed reunification” with Taiwan more seriously than at any time in the last 50 years. But Xi will assert Chinese control over the island only if he is confident his military can conduct a successful amphibious invasion and if he believes the timing is right for his own career.
