The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal

Taiwan’s impossible choice: Be Ukraine or Hong Kong

By Yaroslav Trofimov and Joyu Wang

05 Jul 2023 · 9 min read

informed Summary

  1. The war in Ukraine has sparked a debate in Taiwan about how to handle the threat of an invasion by China.

TAIPEI, Taiwan—People in Taiwan have been following every twist of the war in Ukraine. But, while their sympathy for the Ukrainian cause is near-universal, the conclusions for the island’s own future widely diverge.

To some, the takeaway is that even a seemingly invincible foe can be defeated if a society stands firm, an inspiration for Taiwan’s own effort to resist a feared invasion by China. Others draw the opposite lesson from the images of smoldering Ukrainian cities. Anything is better than war, they say, and Taiwan should do all it can to avoid provoking Beijing’s wrath, even if that means painful compromises.

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