Friday February 23, 2024
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Meeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
Speaker will participate by Zoom
Dampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
“How Primed for War is China?” asked an article in Foreign Policy on February 4, concluding that, “Risk signals for a conflict are flashing red.”
Although China has pushed the military envelope in a number of places recently, with tensions especially high in the South China Sea, the overwhelmingly dominant fear is that China will invade Taiwan. At the turn of the (international) new year, President Xi Jinping declared that, “the reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” and called the then-frontrunner in Taiwan’s January 13 election for president a “destroyer of peace.” Lai Ching-te won anyway.
Over recent years the People’s Liberation Army has become more and more aggressive around Taiwan’s borders, and this is backed up by strongly nationalistic propaganda within China. In the words of an August New York Times article about how China has been probing Taiwan’s defenses, “(a) recent documentary series on Chinese state television, “Chasing the Dream,’ has portrayed Chinese troops as confident, but willing to die if necessary, in any war. ‘If there is one day that would make me truly proud,’ a pilot says in one episode, ‘I think it will be the moment when our motherland is united.’” But the people of Taiwan seem less than enthused about that idea. Over the past decades more and more of its people have identified as Taiwanese, rather than Chinese or both, and nearly half of the population in recent polling favored independence, while only 12 percent supported reunification with China.
The island not-officially-recognized state of about 24 million people is a weird anomaly in diplomatic terms. It is officially recognized by very few countries, sometimes referred to by another name (the OECD calls it “Chinese Taipei” and the IMF calls it “Taiwan Province of China”), and for fifty years the United States has never endorsed Taiwanese independence from China.
But the same international organizations treat Taiwan as a separate entity in their reports as, of course, does the United States government. It is too important to leave out. Taiwan’s economics and politics look a whole lot like a thriving nation-state. In spite of China’s rise to world-power status, Taiwan has a much higher GDP per capita – over 2.5 times as large. Its representative government “draws envy and tears for visiting Chinese” – well, at least for visiting Chinese democracy activists. Taiwan is also a central part of the world economy because it dominates production of semiconductors, with a 68% market share overall and 90% share of the most advanced chips.
The reasons China might invade are pretty straightforward. As the Foreign Policy article two weeks ago argued, the stakes are a territorial dispute that is impossible in principle to compromise. Wars are started by countries that think they can win at the time, especially if they fear decline in the future. For many reasons sometime soon might look like an ideal time for a China that has a fast-growing military, with U.S. resources diverted to Ukraine but the Chinese state facing growing economic and demographic risks. The political risks of losing are much less for a dictator than an elected leader (though still worth concern for Xi). Other countries are already pressuring China anyway, particularly in efforts to limit access to high-end semiconductors. One might speculate that invading Taiwan would either guarantee that access or at least deny it to everyone else.
But even a dictator with sycophantic advisers has to realize that crossing a hundred mile wide strait to invade a technologically advanced rival could have rather high costs. Those depend further on Taiwan’s willingness and ability to resist. So one of the most pressing questions at the moment is the Taiwanese government’s ability to walk a tightrope between strengthening defenses and inflaming Chinese sentiment.
So what might happen? Beats me, but I know a good person to ask. Julie Strauss spent nine years as editor of the The China Quarterly as part of her distinguished career at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She was one of our last visitors to campus before the pandemic hit, giving talks at the end of February, 2020 about her then-new book on development of the states in both Taiwan and China and, at the “Friday Lunch,” about the Chinese belt-and-road international initiative. She returns by Zoom to respond to questions about what might happen and why.
While Professor Strauss will be on Zoom, as we have done with other Zoom-speakers those who wish are very welcome to gather and share refreshments and conversation in the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library.
In-Person and Virtual Attendance
We will meet this week in our regular location, the Dampeer Room on the second floor of Kelvin Smith Library.
We continue also to offer the meetings on Zoom. We do require pre-registering so as to avoid “zoom-bombing.” The pre-registration link is posted below.
The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also be prepared to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.
Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.
Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.
This week’s Zoom link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUvc-qhrj0oEtdxJQFsi8lfe3hEEfs1twU1
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please also e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about arrangements or any suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Julia C. Strauss received a BA in Chinese Language and European History from Connecticut College and her MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1994, served as Editor of The China Quarterly from 2002 – 2011, and was promoted to Professor in 2013. She also is a frequent visiting professor at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science.
Professor Strauss’ research interests span both sides of the Taiwan Straits and are focused on state building and institution building, governance, the performative dimensions of politics, the environment, and China’s “going out” policy toward the developing world, particular with respect to Africa and Latin America. A major theme in her research is how institutions developed from imperial to republican China, and then continuities and differences in subsequent developments in China and Taiwan. Among this work are two books: Strong Institutions in Weak Polities: State Building in Republican China, 1927 – 1940 (Oxford University Press, 1998) and State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
March 1: Inside State Energy Politics. With Daniel Gray, Founder and Director of Local Strategies, Citizens Utility Board of Ohio.
March 8: The 2024 Elections. With Colin Swearingen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.
March 15: Spring Break
March 22: Thinking About Generative AI. With Satya Sahoo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Science and Director, Biomedical and Health Informatics Ph.D. Program.
March 29: The Impact of Neighborhood and Racial Violence on Black Youth Developmental Outcomes. With Dexter Voisin, Ph.D., Dean of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.
April 5: WTFentanyl? What We Need to Know About the Current Opioid Crisis. With Ryan Marino, MD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry.
April 12: Conspiracy Theories and Climate Change Skepticism in Europe. With Andreas Sobisch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.
April 19: Why Our Children Struggle in School: Going Beyond the ADHD Metaphor. With Arthur Lavin MD, FAAP. Alternate Room: Kelvin Smith Library LL06
April 26: What Does It Mean for Us? Local Needs and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. With Howard Maier FAICP, Adjunct Professor of Political Science. |
