Geopolitics expert Dmitri Alperovitch compares Xi Jinping's push for Taiwan to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, identifying five shared motivations: distorted historical narratives, imperial restoration ambitions, perceived encirclement by U.S. bases, geographic control of Asian maritime routes, and national ego. Taiwan is the linchpin that would let China dominate East Asia and challenge U.S. power.
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Why does China want to invade Taiwan? I was one of the early predictors of Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I believe that there are five reasons why Putin decided to invade Ukraine. And those five reasons actually are the same reasons why Xi, I believe, wants to invade Taiwan. Their history, destiny, security, geography and ego history. Both of these leaders, Putin and Xi, have a distorted view of history. We believe these nations, Ukraine and Taiwan, are not independent countries that deserve to survive outside of the respective empires of Russia and China. Both Iran, of course, and the views are historical, but nevertheless, they believe that passionately. And by the way, most of the populations in Russia and China believe the same thing, that Ukraine is not a nation and Taiwan is not a nation either. There's a destiny element of this as well. Both a personal destiny on their parts and a destiny of their nations to be sort of the great countries that they used to be. In the case of Russia, it's, you know, rebuilding the great Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, at least the power that it had back in the day before it lost the Cold War. And in the case of China, it's going back to China's origins, where for much of human history, China was the most powerful, most prosperous country, obviously the most populous on earth. And it lost that mantle first to Great Britain and then to the United States with the Industrial Revolution. And it wants to reemerge back on the world stage as a preeminent superpower. And Taiwan is really key to that. The reason it's key is for the other two reasons, which is geography and security. When you look at China, it is effectively contained by US military bases and allies from South Korea to Japan to the Philippines, forming the so called first island chain, in particular Japan and the Philippines. And at the center of it, of course, is Taiwan. There's a cork that keeps China bottled up where the US Navy is basically patrolling all of their trade routes from Malacca Strait in South China Sea to the Taiwan Strait. They're essential for China's security, but also for China's power projection. If it's able to control Taiwan is going to be able to establish a dominant position all over that region and now push the United States military out of East Asia all the way back to Hawaii and start setting the rules of the road for Japan, for Korea, for the Philippines, our key partners in that region. And.
