Sheer ignorance, fed by malign intent, historical prejudice and mutual misunderstanding, is often the crucial spark that ignites simmering international conflicts. If Adolf Hitler, remarkably ignorant of the US, had grasped the true extent of American industrial might, would he still have fatefully declared war on Washington in 1941?
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, it evidently had no idea what it was getting into. Humiliating defeat contributed greatly to its subsequent disintegration. In 1990, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait, convinced he had a green light from the White House. In all these cases, stupidity produced disastrous misjudgments that proved fatal.
China’s fractious relations with the western democracies suffer from similarly hazardous blindspots. The recent publication in state media of “explainer” articles apparently intended to provide reassurance about Taiwan’s future under Chinese rule exemplified this lack of mutual knowledge, to almost comical effect.
When (not if) China takes charge, vetted “patriots” will govern Taiwan in a Beijing-approved regime modelled on Hong Kong, the articles said. Say again? Viewed from Taipei and the west, Hong Kong is a cautionary tale of nightmarish repression, brutal security laws, censorship – and broken Chinese promises dating back to the 1997 handover from Britain.
How astonishing that even the most indoctrinated communist apparatchik may think Taiwan’s citizens, who cherish their democracy and de facto sovereign independence, would voluntarily follow this path. To assure peace and prosperity, secessionists would be crushed, state media declared brightly. It’s obvious – Beijing just doesn’t get it.
China’s relentless siege of traditionally US-backed Taiwan has moved beyond crude military pressure (although that’s increasing). Its efforts to enforce the island’s economic and diplomatic isolation – and overthrow its pro-western, elected government – are augmented by spying, cyber-sabotage, mass surveillance and idiotic lies, conspiracies and disinformation.
Announcing a $40bn increase in defence spending last week, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, warned the annexation threat was “intensifying”. In an echo of Ukraine, which faces similar pressures from Russia and is likewise unsure of US support, Lai said the most worrying scenario was that browbeaten Taiwanese would simply give up.
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s first preference is to win without a devastating, unpredictable war,” wrote analyst Hal Brands. “His method is encompassing, steadily escalating coercion … This is a classic ‘anaconda strategy’, meant to get progressively tighter until Taiwan yields. Isolation and demoralisation will ultimately produce capitulation, the thinking goes.”
Xi would still use military force if coercion failed, Brands predicted. But China’s main thrust was aimed at “creating a sense, in Taiwan, that Chinese power is overwhelming; fostering a belief, in the US, that intervention is just too costly; and thereby convincing the people of Taiwan, some day, that their best option is to give up without a fight.”
Political foolishness, rooted in historical enmity, is also fuelling the most heated crisis in China-Japan relations in a decade. It exploded when Japan’s newly installed, rightwing prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, answered a random question in parliament. Defending Taiwan and nearby trade routes from Chinese invasion, including by military means, was, she said, an existential issue “threatening [Japan’s] survival”.
Takaichi, a protege of hawkish former PM, Shinzo Abe, was merely stating what she and many Japanese have long believed – but blurting it out loud, on the record, made it official. An incandescent China swiftly imposed sanctions and boycotts; both sides moved military assets towards disputed islands. China’s consul general in Osaka demanded Takaichi be “decapitated” in a tweet that was later deleted.
That was exceptionally dumb. China’s hysterical reaction to what was basically a statement of the obvious is wildly exaggerated, indicating nervousness about where its Taiwan policy may lead. Takaichi’s provocative iron lady tribute act has won public backing, polls show, even though it came about almost by accident. But ignorance is not bliss. The risk of real conflict is too great.
This row – and Lai’s alarm bells – have highlighted the Taiwan issue just as Xi was trying to neutralise it as a US-China bilateral problem. Xi has successfully repulsed Donald Trump’s tariff bullying this year. In particular, his swingeing, retaliatory export curbs on rare-earth minerals floored Washington. They marked a moment when global geopolitical power shifted.
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Lai Ching-te, president of Taiwan, holds a press conference on his ‘Action Plan for Safeguarding Democratic Taiwan and National Security’, Taipei, 26 November 2025. Photograph: I-Hwa Cheng/AFP/Getty Images
Lacking a strategy, Trump has now flipped from waging a trade war to gushing gratitude for an invitation to visit Beijing next April, obtained during his obsequious phone call to Xi last week. Trump subsequently offered no public assurances to Taiwan and, in a separate call, urged his Japanese ally, Takaichi, to pipe down. His truckling to Xi reinforced fears in Taipei and Tokyo that, as Ukraine knows, he’s chronically unreliable.
For his part, Xi used the call to forcefully imply that if Trump really wants a big, beautiful trade deal to boast about at home, the US must formally accept that China’s sovereign right to Taiwan is an “integral part of the postwar international order”.
Suspicions grow that Trump may ultimately subordinate defence of Taiwan to detente with China. At present, he seesaws. Promised arms packages are delayed or don’t arrive. Taiwan sought a free trade agreement. Instead, it was hit with 32% tariffs, later reduced. Now as before, the cluelessness in this dynamic is all Trump’s. Xi continues to run rings round him.
Taiwan and Japan are not alone in worrying that Trump doesn’t understand what’s at stake. “The administration’s single-minded prioritisation of trade has led it to sweep thornier points of diplomatic contention under the rug,” wrote Jonathan Czin, a China specialist, pointing to Beijing’s unchecked human rights abuses, anti-western cyberwarfare, armed confrontations with the Philippines and overall South China Sea expansionism.
As in Czechoslovakia in 1938, so in Ukraine and now, prospectively, in Taiwan. “History has proven that compromising with aggression only brings war and enslavement,” Lai warned. But Trump doesn’t read history. His ignorance kills.
