Why Losing a Taiwan War Might Not Break China |
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets the leader of Kyrgyzstan during the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Under Xi, China has sought to stabilize its partnerships in Central Asia through institutions like the SCO and the Belt and Road initiative, giving it greater leeway to act in the Pacific. (President of the Russian Federation)
Why Losing a Taiwan War Might Not Break China
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The Yuan dynasty felt secure enough to invade Japan—and suffer catastrophic losses—because its position on the Eurasian landmass was secure. Is China’s today?
Many Western analysts believe that a failed Taiwan operation could threaten Communist rule in China and that Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping therefore would not risk everything on such a high-stakes gamble. This hypothesis may or may not be true. But China’s own imperial history suggests another possibility. Over seven centuries ago, Kublai Khan, Great Khan of the Mongols and emperor of China’s Yuan Dynasty, launched two massive amphibious invasions of Japan. Both ended in failure. Yet Kublai remained on the throne, and the Yuan Dynasty survived for nearly another century. Why? Because the defeat at sea did not destroy the Yuan’s continental foundations of power.
Today, the People’s Republic of China under Xi has approached its near-environs in Eurasia and the Pacific with a strikingly similar logic. That Xi hopes to bolster China’s power in the Pacific is hardly a secret. Yet under an increasingly continental conception of strategy, Beijing is also building sources of power that extend far into the Asian landmass. The United States and its allies need to grasp this continental dimension of Chinese power, so as not to overlook the larger strategic system that could allow Beijing to take risks at sea.
The Mongol Empire was first forged on the high steppe under Genghis Khan, and consolidated in China under his grandson Kublai Khan. Kublai ruled China as emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), establishing his capital in present-day Beijing. It was under the Yuan that the far-flung regions of Tibet and Yunnan were brought under Chinese rule. At the same time, the Yuan Emperor, as Great Khan, claimed nominal supremacy over the other Mongol khanates ruled by members of his extended family: the Golden Horde in what is now southern Russia, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, and the Ilkhanate centered on Iran. Together with tributary and vassal relationships extending into Korea and parts of Southeast Asia, this gave the Yuan court a political horizon that stretched far beyond China proper, deep into the Eurasian continent.
The Han-led Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Yuan in 1368,........