To thwart China’s plans, Taiwan must be recognized

Chinese activism regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine demonstrates how Beijing is interested in being recognized as a protagonist in the affair, officially in the name of reconciliation between the parties. In reality, the Chinese peace plan is not made to be taken seriously by both opposing parties and is therefore a strategy which hides other objectives behind the desire to represent a peacemaking action. Certainly there is also the will to be an active part in a possible halt to hostilities, the certification of an active role in the search for peace, but this is only the outward appearance, which hides a well thought-out plan, which falls within the opposition with the USA and with the West, more generally. The reasons are different and the attempt to identify them can only represent a simple conjecture, however, there are several concrete facts that can support these theories. The need to create a greater selection of the polarization of the confrontation, to avoid the current multipolar situation on the international scene, prompted Beijing to plan to make Moscow in a situation of vassalage of China, a task facilitated by Russia’s need to break the isolation, political and economic, in which it finds itself. The Chinese action could serve to allow the Kremlin to buy time for its own reorganization, above all military, a factor to be paid dearly, with a sort of undeclared submission to Chinese wishes. This fact would allow China to expand its zone of global influence with a partner equipped with atomic strength: a significant deterrent in the future of relations with Washington. If this factor is of an international order, there is perhaps a more worrying one of an internal order, for China, constituted by the question of Taiwan. The Chinese ambiguity on Ukraine, despite the disaster for Beijing’s exports and the worsening of the world economy, is due precisely to the precedent of the current conflict undertaken by Moscow to regain territories that it has always considered part of its nation. Beyond some impromptu and extremist utterances by Chinese officials on the legitimacy of the Russian action, President Xi Jinping has tried to officially maintain a cautious attitude on the conflict, while not liking the expansion of the Atlantic Alliance up to the Moscow border, but he has repeatedly warned that the question of Taiwan cannot be treated in the same way by the West, because the island of Formosa is considered an integral part of Chinese territory, despite having never been part of the People’s Republic of China; at the same time he has intensified military exercises and trials of strength, as real threats, against Taipei and against any Western ambitions. The Atlantic Alliance took action by responding with the presence of ships, as well as American, also French, English and Italian, but it is understood that this purely military strategy is not sufficient if not supported by a much stronger political action. Despite all the risks that this may involve, the time has come to officially recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state and to open diplomatic representations with it, not only as a tool for establishing official and concrete relations, but as a defense against all possible forms of violence against Taipei. Surely if this possibility were to occur, China would protest very heavily and increase its policy in favor of Russia, to threaten the West, but it could not go too far in retaliating, because Beijing’s main concern, above all others, is economic growth which is used as a tool to avoid drifts against the government of the country and to keep dissent at a very low level. Losing the richest markets on the planet would be a backlash capable of putting the regime in difficulty, much more serious than failing to annex Taiwan; certainly the recognition of Taiwan could create diplomatic problems with China, but if it is carried out en bloc by the whole European Union, together with the USA, the United Kingdom and other Western members, such as Australia and Japan, for the People’s Republic of China it will be very difficult to counter diplomatically and also military mobility and, consequently, the threats to Taiwan should be reduced and Chinese ambitions could end. Conversely, such a move could accelerate and unleash a military escalation against Taipei, but in that case the Chinese economy would effectively remain isolated immediately, with no longer the possibility of seeing its gross domestic product grow to the figures necessary to continue to contain dissent .