Are Taiwan and Ukraine comparable?
Realism says no, but it is a maybe for everyone else
Political realism was born in 1853, more or less, with the publication of “Grundsätze der Realpolitik angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands1” by Ludwig von Rochau. It was viewed at the time as a logical extension of pragmatism, but the divergent paths of the actual truth (realism) and the useful truth (pragmatism) cleaved the political approaches apart deftly by the 20th Century.
Recently, it has been suggested that Taiwan poses the same geopolitical risks for U.S. and its allies that Ukraine does. After all, they are both strategic ports and have been asserterd as being part of their respective geopolitical overlords from time to time.
For idealists, the question is a political quandary. For pragmatists, the question is a matter of political importance in the moment.
Nihilists do not care nor are they particulary worried — they see a benefit with fewer actors in the real world game of RISK. Unfortunately, the nihilists on the Right are the ones pushing this comparison the most — “What about?-ism” is their go to response to just about anything stamped Democratic or democratic.
The answer to all three philosophical approaches is “Bullsh!t”. All nations, political partitions, and nation-states are unique by definition. It’s simply naive to think otherwise.
Realists and political geographers are quick to point out the differences. Ukraine is part of Europe and has an abundance of natural resources. Putin’s interest in Ukraine is all about regional power and influence — with Ukraine, Putin believes he can assert his dominance over Europe. Taiwan is an island nation with no natural resources. Xi Jinping’s interest in Taiwan is purely political - ethnically the people of Taiwan are Chinese and have been so for millenia.
Taiwan was settled by Chinese mainlanders about 6,000 years ago and much of its history has been being batted around by the British, Dutch, and Spanish colonial powers plus several ethnically Chinese entities - the Middaq and Tungning as well as the Qing dynasty. Whether it’s called Formosa, Taipei, or Taiwan, its independence has never been a real thing. The Sino-Japanese war even made Taiwan a Japanese held state for a half century until WWII, when its liberation made it an arguable part of China itself — until the U.S. and Zedong made Taiwan a political shuttlecock in the Cold War.
Realists on the Left were quick to argue Taiwan had no independent political identity before 1949 — a view coopted by Nixon and Kissinger to rationalize normalization of diplomatic relations with mainland China in the 1970s.
Ukraine is an entirely different history. Unlike Taiwan, it has not merely resisted domination from foreign powers, it has asserted its individual political identity as far back as the 9th Century CE. Despite nearly 600 years of Poles, Turks, Lithuanians, and Russians asserting their political power over ethnic Ukranians, the people of Ukraine have never completely assented to foreign rule.
Last year, Biden quickly but quietly increased the presence of U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine forces in and near Taiwan. It was actually pretty easy to do so. The U.S. has asserted its power to maintain peace and regional security in the area for over 75 years —- and it has done so without similarly invested allies.
With Ukraine, Biden has been transparent and methodical. The crisis, and now war, in Ukraine requires the cooperation of NATO countries and European countries that are not in NATO. From sharing intelligence on Russia to imposing increasingly tighter economic sanctions, Biden has appealed to the European and UN community with unabashed realism.
The nihilists on the Right are trying to play “what about” with their Taiwan and Ukraine are the same foreign policy problems to exploit a perceived hypocrisy. What the nihilists call hypocrisy, Ludwig von Rochau and Joseph Biden, Jr. call Realpolitik.
Translation: Principles of Realpolitik applied to the national state of affairs of Germany