| | | Les
I wonder what China’s leadership has taken away from the Ukraine war—how long it has dragged on, the level of resistance, and the casualties on both sides. Are they rethinking whether they really want to put Taiwan and their own people through something like this? Would the Chinese population actually want to see such a conflict unfold between their country and Taiwan, and for what benefit? And would the U.S., Japan North and South Korea, and other Asian nations respond differently than what we’ve seen happen in Europe?
response from Grok to my question
Your questions cut to the very heart of one of the most consequential strategic puzzles of our era. Rather than rush to conclusions, let us walk through this together slowly and carefully, as true inquiry demands. I will offer a series of guiding questions so that you can arrive at your own clearest seeing.
Begin here:
What exactly did Russia believe would happen in the first 72 hours of its “special military operation,” and what actually happened instead?
If China’s own plans for Taiwan have long centered on a rapid, decisive fait accompli (seize the island before the U.S. can fully respond), how seriously must Beijing now question whether any invasion can actually be kept short and limited once it begins?
Now layer on the human cost:
Russia has lost—by conservative Western estimates—well over 600,000 casualties (dead and wounded) for marginal territorial gains.
Imagine those numbers, or higher, visited upon the People’s Liberation Army, where most families have only one son.
When the first viral videos of sunken amphibious ships, burning tank landing craft, and body bags returning to Fujian and Guangdong appear on Chinese social media, what happens inside a society that has known only rising prosperity for forty years?
Does the Party’s legitimacy survive hundreds of thousands of dead for an objective that, in 2025, many ordinary citizens increasingly describe (in private chats and surveys) as “important, but not worth war”?
Ask yourself about the economic price:
Russia was already a relatively isolated petro-kleptocracy with $630 billion in reserves and low global integration; it has suffered yet endured.
China is the world’s factory, holding everyone’s supply chains in its hands.
If the Taiwan Strait closes for even six months, if TSMC’s fabs burn or are rendered inoperable, if the U.S., Japan, Europe, and others impose Russia-level (or higher) sanctions—what happens to 400 million Chinese middle-class jobs?
Can the same public that rioted over zero-COVID lockdowns in 2022 quietly accept a 20–40% GDP contraction and youth unemployment soaring past 40% in the name of “reunification”?
Now consider the battlefield itself:
Ukraine has shown that a smaller defender, armed with precision coastal-defense missiles, sea drones, and real-time satellite intelligence, can make amphibious assault extraordinarily lethal.
The Taiwan Strait is 100–180 km of some of the world’s worst sea conditions, patrolled by a defender who has spent thirty years preparing for exactly this scenario.
After watching the Russian Black Sea Fleet be driven from its own waters by a country without a navy, what confidence can the PLA Navy truly have that its landing fleet survives the crossing?
Turn to the people inside China:
Every year, more mainland Chinese—especially the young, urban, educated cohorts—are quietly telling pollsters (when they dare answer honestly) that they prefer peaceful unification or even the status quo over war.
Support for immediate military action is softening; preference for direct diplomacy with Taiwan is rising.
When the Party’s own survival rests on delivering prosperity and pride, how much risk is Xi Jinping actually willing to run with a population that increasingly sees Taiwan as “family, yes—but not worth my only child’s life”?
Finally, compare the likely international reaction:
In Ukraine, the West has given weapons and money, but no NATO boots on the ground—because Ukraine is not a treaty ally and the fight is on the European continent.
Taiwan sits in the middle of the First Island Chain, produces >90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors, and an attack on it would directly strike U.S. forces in Japan and Guam from hour one.
Multiple U.S. presidents have now said publicly that American forces would defend Taiwan. Japan has declared Taiwan a vital security interest; its southern islands are 70 km from Taiwan. The Philippines has granted the U.S. new bases explicitly for this contingency. Australia is in AUKUS precisely to help fight this war.
If shots are fired, this becomes a direct U.S.-China war on day one, not a proxy war that starts on day 400.
Does Beijing believe the same coalition that has sustained Ukraine for four years with $400 billion in aid would hesitate when their own economies and militaries are directly engaged?
So let the deepest question settle in:
After watching Russia bleed for four years, gain almost nothing, and turn itself into a global pariah—while discovering that the West’s resolve and coordination were far stronger than Moscow expected—
is Xi Jinping and the CCP more or less likely to roll the dice on an invasion that would be vastly harder, vastly more expensive, and would pit China directly against the strongest military alliance in history?
What conclusion does your own reasoning reach when you hold all these threads together?
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