As Russia Gets Weaker, Xi Jinping May Forgo Taiwan To Grab Eastern Russia

As China’s Communist Party Congress wound to a close, China’s “Paramount Leader,” Xi Jinping, emerged stronger than ever. Granting himself a third five-year term, what remained of any internal opposition was ceremonially ushered out of the room. With Xi’s powerbase solid, the West is taking to the fainting couch, anticipating that Xi’s hardline approach towards China’s territorial ambitions will rapidly crystalize into a military confrontation over Taiwan, a key link in the strategic “first island chain” in the Pacific.

The threat is overstated. Even though Party delegates baked new anti-Taiwanese language into the Communist Party’s constitution, the real territorial opportunity for China is to the North, in the Russian Far East, where hundreds of thousands of ethnically Chinese Russian citizens, trapped in a substantially weakened and hollow dictatorship, consider their options.

Taiwan is an obvious target for Chinese territorial expansion, but it is a tough nut to crack. Self-governed since 1949, China treats Taiwan as a rebel province, while Taiwan considers itself an independent country. For his part, President Xi expected reunification to occur no later than 2049, using that target date to spur a massive military reforms and a speedy modernization. Some timorous Western observers fear that China, facing demographic and economic headwinds, has accelerated the “timeline” for reunification, and may take concrete military action over the next few years to grab the rebel territory.

That might happen. But if China’s modern efforts at territorial expansion has taught observers anything, it is that China’s expansionism is opportunistic, with leaders preferring to expand into areas that are contested or loosely held. Rather than fight, China grabs. And, as Russia’s conventional forces are getting ground up in Ukraine, the best strategic return comes from pressing north, along China’s 2,615 mile frontier with Russia, and grabbing territory there.

A Limitless Friendship That Has Boundary Issues

In the runup to Russia’s debacle in Ukraine, China and Russia declared a friendship “without limits.” But both countries know that friendship agreements are fragile things. Less than two decades after China and the Soviet Union signed their last friendship treaty, the two countries engaged in a sharp series of border fights. Expansion-minded Chinese nationalists, coupled with China’s increasing and barely concealed contempt for Russian weakness, have the power to erode Russia and China’s current rapprochement in a matter of moments.

The foundations for conflict are deep. China and Russia have bickered and battled over their shared border for centuries, while “official” resolution, such as it is, only came in 2008. For a centuries-old border conflict that predates the official existence of both nations, China could easily overturn current agreements, demanding that Russia return Vladivostok as well as some 23,000 square miles of former Chinese territory Russia has held since 1860.

Despite agreements stating that all outstanding issues are settled, China keeps all of its expansionist-minded options open. China still quietly nurtures simmering grievances. Vladivostok, Russia’s military and commercial gateway to the Pacific, is still described in China by the city’s old Chinese name, Haishenwai, or “sea cucumber bay.” Chinese resentment over the centuries old agreements that established China’s northern frontier remains a society-wide staple. There has been speculation for years that the great demographic imbalance between China and Russia’s depopulating Far East could encourage Beijing to press north.

The foundation for a northern territorial claim—albeit a flimsy one—to an even wider swath of Russia’s far East territories exist. Chinese historic records suggest Chinese explorers reached the Arctic during the Tang Dynasty—if not before—allowing China to chip away at Russia’s territorial legitimacy. Even if the claims might be extravagant, the mental gymnastics would be worthwhile. Getting a foothold—any foothold—north of the Arctic circle allows China to formally claim status as an Arctic—if not a Polar—power.

The Time Is Right

China, globally, has taken great pains to minimize any differences between Chinese ethnicity and Chinese nationality. As Russia’s far east wallows in economic stagnation, ignored by Russia’s Moscow elites, Russia’s many citizens of Chinese ethnicity could be tempted to reconsider their national loyalties. The forced resettlement of Ukrainians into the region will only further degrade the societal homogeneity of Asian Russia.

Demographically, with only two or three people per square kilometer, the vast expanse of Asian Russia is essentially vacant, ready for annexation and easy settlement. Those Russian citizens that remain are largely voting with their feet, heading west towards the more glamorous cities of European Russia. In a few years, there simply won’t be many ethnic Russians left in Russia’s eastern territories.

Along with vast amounts of open space, Asian Russia is resource-rich, capable of fueling China’s rise for decades to come. And with climate change, Asian Russia’s bleak eastern lands may yet bloom, transforming into a much-needed Asian breadbasket.

With Russia’s military reputation in tatters, and the Russian Army reduced to begging for supplies from Iran and a motley band of ex-Soviet states, there is little left in the conventional Russian arsenal to deter Chinese military aggression. In desperation, Russia is reactivating the same types of T-62 main battle tanks that China seized from Russian border forces some fifty years ago. Contempt for Russia’s military will be increasingly difficult for China to contain.

Asian Russia is open for the taking. By deft application of Grey Zone provocations, along with a savvy exploitation of negative global sentiment towards the Putin Regime, China could change the “facts on the ground” quickly, outmaneuvering Russia’s nuclear deterrent, and leaving a prostrate Russia with essentially no options beyond accepting a territorial fait accompli. Over the next few years, with Russia serving as little more an unarmed and unstable pariah state, China could lay claim to all of Siberia overnight, and nobody would raise much of a fuss.

Taiwan Can Wait

Modern China has learned that it can often win without fighting. Today, Paramount Leader Xi has sufficient force to back provocative territorial claims. On the other hand, China neither needs nor wants a fight that will, like Ukraine, catalyze global resistance. The math just doesn’t work. Stripping a dying Russia down to the bone offers a far greater return on investment than a combative near-term push on Taiwan now.

Russia will never be weaker than it is today, while Taiwanese attitudes may well change over time.

Certainly, a menacing attitude towards Taiwan is a useful tool. The government’s aggressive stance unites China, while the constant military jostling offers good operational training for Chinese forces. A credible Chinese threat to Taiwan captures a disproportionate amount of Western attention as well, distorting Western statecraft and military investment priorities. In competition with the West, Taiwan is an enormously useful distraction, feeding America’s tactical obsessions while distracting America’s strategic focus in other critical areas.

If China moves on Taiwan in the near term, widespread conflict is inevitable. But if China makes a grab for territory to the North, it gets access to new resources, new protein stocks, and can, in turn, nourish the aggrieved country’s sense of “Manifest Destiny” for very, very little. Xi might even earn some grudging international respect for helping to remove a rogue Russian leader from the board.

A Chinese push to reclaim Asian Russia makes sense. Taiwan offers China little more than strife, while a press to push Russia out of Asia opens far more profitable options to the hungry and expansion-minded Chinese state.