The war in Ukraine has dominated the majority of global media outlets over the last few weeks, and for good reason. This unprecedented conflict is the largest in Europe since World War II. However, its impact spreads much further than Europe and has even influenced China and Taiwan. The two nations, which have been near war for many years, are watching what could be their fate in the next few years (or even months), and this has the international community worried. On the one hand, the war in Ukraine could act as the perfect smokescreen; taking the attention away from China making aggressive moves against Taiwan. While no one expects an imminent Chinese invasion, the country did send fighter jets through Taiwanese airspace during the first week of the Ukrainian conflict, putting the country on high alert.

Still, China may be looking at how difficult this war has been so far for Russia and may be getting discouraged. The economic sanctions placed on Russia have seen its economy crumble and the value of the Ruble plummet. Russia’s military struggles in Ukraine have seen the country resorting to shelling civilian populated cities, much to the condemnation of the international community, and even asking China to send weapons to help with the war. United States President Joe Biden sent a group of delegates to Taiwan in order to re-iterate their commitment to the state’s sovereignty. Top Chinese and U.S. diplomats have also met to discuss international relations.

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Avril Hanes, suggested that “the impact of those [U.S.] sanctions [on Russia]… are critical to [China’s] calculus and [it is] something that will be interesting for us to see how they learn those lessons,” implying that China may be more concerned over the economic sanctions imposed on their country, than the loss of life itself. Despite this, Director of the CIA, Bill Burns, stated that “I would not underestimate President Xi and the Chinese leadership’s determination with regard to Taiwan.” Whilst this dichotomy leaves the U.S. and NATO with a “two-front” problem in China and Russia, former Pentagon Official, Elbridge Colby, states that “there are things we can and should do to help Ukraine… but Europe must take a back seat to ensuring our military position in Asia.” This suggests that not only is China more of a threat than Russia, but Asia is also more important than Europe.

At this moment in time, the U.S., NATO, and the West should not be making any moves that could antagonize China into invading Taiwan sooner. As Russia president Vladimir Putin and Russia have already crossed the line of invading another country, the international community must do everything it can to force Russia to withdraw from the country and end the bloodshed, whilst also not goading the country into escalating the conflict. A war in Taiwan may be inevitable, but the response of the international community towards Russia may delay China in acting, increasing its importance.

Although not identical, the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is similar to the one between China and Taiwan. Unlike with Ukraine, the U.S. has made more commitments to helping Taiwan with defending an invasion. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. must supply Taiwan with the means to defend themselves if an attack were to occur. What we can learn from Ukraine, is that this would probably be paired with hefty sanctions against China too. As a country, Taiwan is also surrounded by ocean, whereas Ukraine is not. A culmination of all these factors suggests that invading Taiwan would prove to be far more difficult if the Taiwanese were to put up as much of a fight as the Ukrainians have so far.

Whilst it is accepted that in the near future, China will eventually invade Taiwan, and will have taken into account all it will suffer because of it, Russia is currently invading Ukraine. It is good to use this to help avoid conflict in the future, but all focus should be on the best way to end this current one.