Could China invade South Korea after Taiwan?

Taiwan and South Korea both invite comparisons with Ukraine. If Russia’s President Vladimir Putin could order his troops into his neighbor with impunity, surely China’s President Xi Jinping might finally decide to recover Taiwan, the island province that has remained staunchly independent ever since Mao Zedong’s Red Army finished his conquest of the mainland in 1949.

It was one thing, though, to make a show of surrounding the island, staging live-fire exercises at sea and in the air during and after a 19-hour visit in early August by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), but another to make good on the threat to go beyond a massive show of force. 

Two U.S. guided-missile destroyers cruised grandly through the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, defying rhetoric from Beijing. China’s warplanes persist in violating Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, but no one bothered the USS Chancellorsville and USS Antietam as they plied “international waters in accordance with international law,” all for the sake of “a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said the Navy’s 7^th Fleet.

China was progressively less dramatic with its responses to visits by congressional delegations led by Pelosi and Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), and then by two Republicans, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who declared on arrival that she would “not be bullied by Communist China” while China conducted what it called “normalized military operations.”

Taiwan welcomed the attention. President Tsai Ing-wen and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu happily saw all the high-profile visitors. Not by accident, Blackburn referred to Taiwan as “a country” in defiance of America’s ritualistic adherence to the “one China” myth that agrees Taiwan is an offshore province. Tsai sees no reason to incense Beijing by declaring nationhood but talked tough in her meetings with the visiting Americans. China and Russia, she told Blackburn, are “disrupting and threatening the world order.”

China’s crackdown on protests in Hong Kong arouses concern for what might happen were China to take over Taiwan or invade South Korea on behalf of North Korea. Global Times, the English-language offshoot of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, proudly reported that Chinese authorities in Hong Kong have arrested and sentenced “dozens of anti-China figures” as “deterrents to secessionists.”

Taiwanese with whom I have spoken have no doubt that if China were ever to make good on threats to “recover” Taiwan, Beijing would engage in a wave of killings and arrests and set up concentration camps for thousands who dared defy its rule. China is expected to stoke concerns in the run-up to the party congress in Beijing in November. No doubt President Xi will win another five years in power, possibly by acclamation, but he’s sure to keep up the pressure on Taiwan as he flexes his muscles as a strongman while distracting attention from economic pressures at home.

“Taiwan braces for sustained Chinese pressure,” headlined Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing polls showing 60 to 78 percent of respondents “were not worried about large-scale live-fire military drills launched by Beijing.” Taiwan’s defense ministry said China’s “simulated attack” had been “met with a shrug by many in a country wearily attuned to Chinese saber-rattling.”

Some analysts say Taiwan, with 300,000 troops armed to the teeth, would be like a “porcupine” under attack. That is, the island with 23.6 million inhabitants, bristling with weapons like the needles on a porcupine, would sting and prick its attackers into whining retreat. That scenario, however, is a little optimistic. Air power and naval gunfire could grind those needles to shreds. All that’s stopping China now is the knowledge that Taiwan would resist any invasion with the support of America’s “commitment” to defend the island, assuming President Biden can be trusted to live up to his word.

South Korea invites somewhat different comparisons with Ukraine. Hu Shi-jin, former editor of the Global Times, has warned, “If South Korea chooses a path that is hostile to its neighbors, the end of that path could be Ukraine.”

South Korea would rather not risk China’s ire, but was upset by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s warning against increasing the number of THAAD missiles the Americans have implanted on a former golf course 200 kilometers south of Seoul. South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, has said it’s not up to China to set limits on missiles for THAAD, Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense against high-flying hypersonic missiles that North Korea may be capable of firing. China, in the view of many South Koreans, has no right to tell South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol not to join the U.S.-led missile network or a trilateral alliance with the U.S. and Japan.

The history of Japanese colonial rule may preclude an alliance with South Korea, but Yoon has been attempting to improve relations with Tokyo, severely damaged during the Moon presidency. At the least, he’s all for Korea and Japan joining in naval exercises and sharing intelligence information while sticking to demands for compensation for Koreans forced to serve as slaves for Japanese companies in World War II. Together, Korea and Japan need to form a common bond in the face of Chinese aggression.

The wave of arrests and jail sentences in Hong Kong was a warning. China’s dictatorship over Hong Kong, in violation of the agreement with Britain under which the former colony was to remain self-governing for 50 years after its formal peaceful takeover by China in 1997, sets a precedent for all those within China’s range.

South Korea, like Taiwan, is in a difficult position. It’s easy to hope that China is exercising a restraining influence on North Korea, urging leader Kim Jong Un not to stage a seventh nuclear test and to scale down his missile tests.

Threats by Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, suggest the North may not be listening. After blaming balloons laden with propaganda from South Korea for introducing COVID-19 into North Korea, she told Yoon to “shut up” in response to his “audacious initiative” to provide massive aid to the North in return for the North getting rid of its nukes.

Taiwan and South Korea must stand fast against Chinese demands. Weakness in the face of bullying will lead to defeat, destroying not only their success as nascent democracies but also their survival as fiercely independent states in a dangerous region.

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He currently is a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs.