Immediately after Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute posed a question about the risk of an invasion on the other side of the world: We asked international relations (IR) scholars if a Chinese attack on Taiwan was imminent. More than 70 percent of respondents said they did not believe China would use military force against Taiwan in the coming year.
So far, the experts’ predictions have held true, and fragile peace endures in the region. China engaged in bellicose rhetoric ahead of Taiwan’s Jan. 13 elections, and it has increased military exercises off Taiwan’s coast (including large-scale drills designed to simulate a blockade). Last August, the United States joined Japan and South Korea in a tripartite agreement that includes efforts to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin warned, “The Asia-Pacific region … should not be turned into a boxing ring for major-power rivalry, still less a battlefield of a cold war or hot war.”
Nonetheless, 2024 began with Taiwan’s Defense Ministry announcing that it had spotted Chinese balloons in the Taiwan Strait, with one balloon crossing into Taiwanese airspace. As tensions slowly rise, it is a good time to reexamine how the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected the probability of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. At the time of the 2022 invasion, observers worried that the West’s failure to deter Moscow and the possibility of a quick Russian victory might encourage China to turn its sights on Taiwan. But with the war in Ukraine dragging into a third year, it’s still not clear what the European crisis means for East Asia.
To find out, we again asked the experts. From June 28 to July 12, 2023, the TRIP project asked IR scholars in the United States whether they thought the U.S. response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict—coordination with European allies to provide significant military support to Ukraine and impose sanctions against Russia—has increased or decreased the likelihood of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The results reported below are based on answers from the 701 scholars. (Complete results and methodology can be found here.)
Less than 8 percent of those surveyed thought the U.S. response made a Chinese attack on Taiwan more likely. Beyond that, the experts were divided between those who believe that the U.S.-led Western response to the war in Ukraine and the costs paid by Russia will deter China and those who thought that either the U.S. response is not relevant to China’s calculations or that the fact that the U.S. supports Ukraine is balanced by the fact that it has not done more to directly defend Kyiv against Moscow’s aggression. These results show that the lessons of Russia’s war in Ukraine for Taiwan can depend on one’s interpretation of deterrence theory.
Has the U.S. Response to Russian Aggression Deterred China?
When asked how the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affects the likelihood of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, IR scholars disagreed. Deterrence theory could suggest that U.S. resolve in the face of Russian actions in Ukraine should influence Chinese calculations and behavior when it comes to Taiwan. Yet respondents were almost equally divided between those who thought U.S. actions have had no consequences for Chinese intentions and actions (46.23 percent) and those who believed that U.S. behavior decreased the probability of a Chinese assault (46.52 percent).
Only 7.25 percent of survey participants believed that the U.S. response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has increased the likelihood of Chinese aggression in Taiwan.
The survey also encouraged the experts to explain their answers to this question. Many of the 46.23 percent of scholars who believed that U.S. policy since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had little influence on China observed that Beijing was already motivated to reunify with Taipei and thus U.S. actions would have little effect. Some respondents in this group noted the conflicting messages that might be reaching China.
As one scholar observed, “I think the Chinese government is facing countervailing information. On one hand, the U.S. is showing surprising commitment to Ukraine, which might signal greater commitment to Taiwan as well. On the other, the U.S. would be overextended if supporting both Ukraine and Taiwan, and the set of allies would be different. I think these net out to no effect.”
A slight majority of the academics we surveyed said that events in Ukraine have influenced China’s calculus on Taiwan, but they disagreed over whether U.S. support increased or decreased the likelihood of a Chinese attack. Those who thought the U.S. response has decreased the chances that China will invade Taiwan drew on deterrence theory when explaining their answers, arguing that the U.S. response has shaped China’s estimation of the costs of invasion and the probability of reunification through military force.
As one respondent noted, “China is more certain of the probability of a forceful U.S. response to Chinese aggression and likelihood of an escalation of conflict that would exceed the costs of potential success.”
A small number of IR experts (7.25 percent) thought U.S. actions in Ukraine made China more likely to use force against Taiwan. These respondents said that the conflict in Ukraine had limited the U.S. capacity to support another country in a conflict with a major power. They also worry that Washington’s response to Moscow’s belligerence, particularly U.S. unwillingness to directly intervene in Ukraine, is not strong enough to deter China.
In language that could have also been drawn directly from deterrence theory, one respondent noted, “Weakness begets aggression by growing empires.”
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What Explains This Divide?
What accounts for the split in expert opinion between those who believe that the U.S. response to Russia’s war in Ukraine has reduced the likelihood that China will use force against Taiwan and those who believe that U.S. actions have had no effect?
One obvious candidate to explain these differences is respondents’ theoretical paradigm. Realism, which is based on the idea that the distribution of power explains international politics, doesn’t make a definitive prediction. Viewed through this lens, U.S. support of Ukraine could lead China to believe that the costs of invading Taiwan would be too high. But the U.S. decision not to become militarily involved in Ukraine could also lead China to conclude that its costs would be relatively low in Taiwan. Chinese officials could also decide that these two factors cancel each other out.
Liberals and constructivists—who focus on institutions, economic interdependence, and ideas as sources of cooperation in international politics—should be more likely than realists to believe that U.S. support for Ukraine and NATO makes China less inclined to invade Taiwan. Among the IR scholars we surveyed, self-described liberals were considerably more likely than realists (58.62 percent vs. 43.1 percent) to say that events in Ukraine reduced the likelihood of war in Taiwan.
Constructivist experts, however, did not respond as predicted; only 38.39 percent said that U.S. action in Ukraine has made China think twice about attacking Taiwan, and a surprising 51.79 percent said there is no relationship between the two conflicts. Perhaps in constructivists’ analysis, Chinese cultural identity and a commitment to reunification override China’s strategic calculations and material costs in the event of an attack on Taiwan.
It’s also reasonable to assume that IR scholars’ regional areas of expertise influence their conclusions on Chinese inferences and intentions. But in our survey, there was little daylight between experts on East Asia—who arguably have the most insight into Chinese calculations—and other respondents.
Meanwhile, respondents with expertise on Russia and the former Soviet Union were less likely to say that the U.S. response in Ukraine has decreased the likelihood that China will use military force against Taiwan than all other IR scholars surveyed (37.84 percent compared to 47 percent). These experts were somewhat more likely (16.22 percent), compared to all other respondents (7.04 percent), to think that events in Ukraine have increased the probability of a Chinese assault on Taiwan.
Two other factors correlate with IR experts’ views. First, younger scholars—assistant professors—were more likely than their more senior colleagues to believe that U.S. support for Ukraine has increased the likelihood that China will invade Taiwan or that events in Ukraine have had no effect on the probability of conflict in East Asia. Asked whether the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine has increased the chances of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, 15.38 percent of assistant professors said yes, compared to only 4.90 percent of associate professors and 7.37 percent of full professors.
Similarly, 53.85 percent of assistant professors thought Ukraine has had no effect on Chinese calculations, compared to 47.06 percent and 44.87 percent of associate and full professors, respectively.
Finally, respondents’ gender appeared to play a role in their views on the impact of the conflict in Ukraine on other global conflicts. While 56.55 percent of female IR experts said the events in Ukraine haven’t influenced the chance of Chinese aggression against Taiwan, only 41.75 percent of male IR experts agreed. Conversely, male scholars were more likely than their female counterparts (51.98 percent compared to 33.33 percent) to believe that the U.S. response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has deterred Chinese aggression.
Women were more likely than men to be experts in international law, human rights, and international organization, fields where respondents were more likely to say that the U.S. response in Ukraine has made China more cautious on Taiwan. But women scholars nonetheless were more likely than men to say that the U.S. response in Ukraine has no relevance for Taiwan. Meanwhile, men were more likely to believe that U.S. policy toward Ukraine will shape Chinese decisions toward Taiwan irrespective of their area of expertise or theoretical paradigm.
What, if anything, do IR experts think the world can learn about the likelihood of military conflict in Taiwan based on recent events in Ukraine? IR scholars with different theoretical perspectives and expertise see different implications from the same events in Ukraine. Overall, the IR discipline has moved away from a simplistic view of deterrence toward a more nuanced understanding of how states draw conclusions based on other states’ behavior in crises. This means that the lessons of the war in Ukraine for Taiwan are neither simple nor straightforward.
As Chinese encroachment in the Taiwan Strait continues, IR scholars will remain divided on whether demonstrations of U.S. capabilities and resolve elsewhere in the world have any bearing on the potential for conflict.