Andy’s view
Just days before US special forces grabbed Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan strongman, China rehearsed a “decapitation” strike against its own nemesis, Taiwan’s leader Lai Ching-te. The drill was part of an intensifying military pressure campaign to intimidate the Taiwanese leadership, demoralize the population, and wear down the island’s resistance to unification with the mainland. The PLA Daily claimed that Lai, aware of the drills, had “outwardly feigned composure, but inwardly felt extremely fearful.”
Could Lai be the next Maduro?
Many US commentators and analysts see heightened risks of just that: In their telling, the Trump administration’s defiance of international law and diplomatic norms to seize Maduro has set a precedent for Beijing, or that President Donald Trump’s claims to US dominance of the Western Hemisphere — the “Donroe” doctrine — implicitly offers Chinese leader Xi Jinping a freer hand in his own backyard.
These concerns sound plausible — but are mostly wrong-headed.
For one, international law doesn’t figure into China’s thinking on Taiwan: Beijing considers the island to be a strictly internal matter, and has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under Communist Party control. A decision to invade would be based on calculations by China about its chances of success.
Nor does China seek US permission to establish a sphere of influence. While Trump has resurrected the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, China reaches back into ancient history; it justifies its claims to the South China Sea, for instance, by citing records dating back to the Han dynasty of 206 BC-220 AD. Its claims to Taiwan rest both on Chinese dynastic-era rule and legal arrangements at the end of World War II when Japan handed back Taiwan, then a colony, to China.
Politically, too, Taiwan and Venezuela are worlds apart. The island is a mature multi-party democracy. If the PLA managed to get through Lai’s marine guards (they’re on constant alert) and snatched him away, a full and legitimate replacement would step in. On the contrary, “decapitation” of the sort used against the Maduro regime might even precipitate a formal declaration of Taiwan independence.
Recognizing these realities, Beijing’s wargaming scenarios imagine any such offensive as a prelude to military action, including a full-scale invasion.
But that would be a historic gamble. Setting aside the logistical challenge of moving vast armies and mountains of war materiel across a 100-mile stretch of storm-lashed waters, an invasion today would wreck the Chinese economy — and stretch the timetable for Xi’s project to usher in the “Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” into the far distance. If war plans went awry, it would also cost Xi his place in history. And it might spell the end of Communist Party rule.
Far better, Beijing’s thinking goes, to scare Taiwan into surrender with drills and other displays of violence.
Trump himself has said he doesn’t believe the Taiwan and Venezuela situations are comparable, telling The New York Times “it’s up to” Xi what to do about the island, although he’d be “very unhappy” about any change in the status quo.
If anything, the Venezuela operation has reduced the odds of that happening: It was both a stunning display of US military prowess, and a sharp reminder of the limitations of Beijing’s capabilities.
Admiral Lee Hsi-min, the former Chief of the General Staff of Taiwan’s defence ministry, notes that the US action required a high degree of integration across intelligence collection, electronic and information warfare, precision strike capabilities, special operations forces, internal political manipulation, and tightly synchronized joint operations. China, Lee writes, lacks the skills to pull off such an operation and, indeed, appears to have done little to protect Maduro or has yet to come to the aid of Iran, ostensibly another partner. The key lesson is “not that decapitation is easy or decisive,” Lee concludes, “but that it is complex, risky, and highly context-dependent.”
That should give Taiwan — and Lai personally — at least a modicum of comfort.
Room for Disagreement
Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that Trump’s Venezuela gambit has shifted the calculus of authoritarian states such as China and Russia who like to feel “righteous,” or at least “no worse than their Western rivals.” In that sense, he says, Trump’s action has lowered the bar.