By Oorja Tapan
The argument of ‘Spheres of Influence’ continues to reflect old power undercurrents- be it Ukraine for Russia or Taiwan for China. The personal history of Xi Jinping’s connection with Taiwan adds to the geostrategic aspects of the conflict over Taiwan. Given China’s ambivalence and disregard for Indian sovereignty claims along with geoeconomic benefits from Taiwanese techno-industrialism, India can no longer sit on the fence on the Taiwan issue.
The end of the Cold War led to the belief that with the U.S. as the only superpower, the idea of strong nations imposing their will on weaker ones (known as Spheres of Influence) was no longer relevant. However, in 2020, Graham Allison pointed out that new Spheres of Influence still reflect old power dynamics, and the U.S. would have to share global influence with other powers. In the 21st century, Russia and China have emerged as these other powers with aggressive domestic policies and assertive foreign posturing. Both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, in their authoritarian governments, pursue past national goals while seeking to maintain regime stability at home.
As seen by the actions of both Putin in Ukraine and Xi in the larger South China Sea (which includes Taiwan) to preserve their respective Spheres of Influence, past concerns of ‘prestige, manipulation and coercion’ (borrowing from Joseph Torigian’s book title) can very well snowball into higher-order security implications. Revisionist powers, as pointed out by experts on China like Hal Brands et al, exhibit a ‘peaking -power syndrome’. Russia and China are no longer ascendant powers who would exhibit optimism aka “peaceful rise”. Both are under tremendous stress of eroding domestic legitimacy due to pandemic-induced economic and social woes. Fast-growing countries like China respond to economic slumps with reckless expansionist tendencies to feed their rhetoric-at-home through face-saving games of prestige, coercion, and information warfare. Anxiety and Aspiration are a dangerous recipe for explosion and the balance of power theorists and policymakers should always remember that bubbling frustration in revisionist powers just needs a spark or an excuse to project and protect their regional hegemony and aspiring superpower status.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) keeps coming up with its list of banned Taiwanese imports. Military drills crossing the Taiwan median line continue along with certain Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)/cyberattacks apart from the recent analyses of Chinese quarantine strategies for Taiwan. China had also released a list of new measures against the U.S. – halting exchanges on a varied set of issues along with new claims of “re-educating Taiwan”. One does not wish to indulge in war-mongering by making ‘too-soon-to-declare” claims on the fourth Taiwan Strait crisis, yet the US and its allies worry about Taiwan under the Chinese influence given its geostrategic importance.
Chinese actions and misgivings over Taiwan are also an excuse to rekindle another past obsession of Xi Jinping’s familial history. For Xi Jinping, Taiwan is not only a central issue for portraying his strong image as the mass-favourite ‘Supreme Leader’ but also for his domestic legitimacy. After mass protests over stifling lockdowns for the absurd ‘zero-Covid’ Chinese policy, the Evergrande real estate crisis alongside a slowing economy, the Taiwan issue for Xi is also personal and deeply emotional. Given the deep involvement of his father Xi Zhongxun in the United Front work for Taiwan spanning over many decades, the unification of Taiwan is a family-plus-national duty for Xi. The Kuomintang (KMT) was the Chinese political party ruling over mainland China from 1927-1949 before its exile to the island of Formosa (aka Taiwan or Republic of China). Xi Zhongxun was deeply engaged in backchannel negotiations with Taipei during the late Mao era and the failure of not being able to achieve “unification’ left a festering wound before his death. As a child, Xi had seen his father meeting with the KMT officials for the United Front work, and thus, Taiwan continues to simmer as a personal and geostrategic aim for both Xi and China. The strongman Chinese leader, Xi Jinping has always put the stability of the PRC regime over everything else, but he constantly repeated that he would not let any part of the territory slip away that his “ancestors” had left for the Chinese people.
Delhi has been watching Taiwan way more closely in recent years than any other time before and in its “concern” over the issues in the South China Sea/the larger Indo-Pacific. Taiwan is close to home for India as both are major players of the Indo-Pacific construct along with geoeconomic interests and therefore, it will not be easy for India to sit on the fence in the coming years on the China-Taiwan conflict. Taiwan, through its new Southbound Policy (launched in 2016) has always encouraged a more concrete relationship with India. New Delhi’s Act East and Indo-Pacific outreach efforts also recognize Taipei for deeper economic relations; especially in semiconductor and electronics manufacturing.
India’s own ‘Sphere of Influence’, apart from South Asia, features in the greater Indo-Pacific order as well for its foreign policy ambitions. China continues to show little regard for India’s red lines over Indian territorial sovereignty as well as in the neighborhood/South Asia. The direct Chinese military pressures in the Himalayas and the oceans coerce Delhi to not be “neutral” here even in the Indo-Pacific affairs. There are hard concerns in New Delhi over a possible Chinese hegemony in Asia. Maintaining an elusive stance on Taiwan will not help Delhi in the long run. If tensions escalate in intensity, “neutrality” and “sitting on the bench” will make it, unwillingly, fall into the “Chinese Sphere of Influence”. And this will be a dangerous and slippery slope for Indian foreign policy. China has shown little concern over Indian red lines and India can start reciprocating the same- for pragmatic reasons.
The author is a Doctoral Fellow in the Diplomacy and Disarmament Division at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation & Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.
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