Trump's Putin dalliance places Taiwan in peril

Telegraph

8 hours ago

I returned from my fourth visit to Ukraine a few weeks ago. Each time I have sought to visit the front line and meet soldiers to hear their stories. With Russian drones and missiles hitting their cities and with constant attacks on their front line, I was much moved by their stoicism and their hope that the West would stand by them. Whilst the soldiers want peace, they were very clear – not at any price.
That's why as I listened to the news on Saturday about the outcome of Anchorage summit between President Trump and Putin, I confess I was more and more depressed.
On the plane to Anchorage President Trump had made it clear that he expected Putin to agree to a ceasefire and he would feel pretty angry if they didn't achieve that.
Hopes were high, as a few weeks ago Trump threatened 'very severe consequences,' unless Putin agreed to a ceasefire. Secondary sanctions on countries still taking Russian oil and gas were even announced.
Yet the Anchorage discussions didn't achieve a ceasefire. Tragically, what they did achieve was not what Trump had claimed he would get but exactly what Putin had wanted; a continuation of the War until his demands for territory, were met.
So, instead of a ceasefire we were left with the leader of the free world posting, weakly that they go instead '…directly to a Peace Agreement, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times does not hold up.' If only Trump had learnt from Teddy Roosevelt, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.'
What all Ukrainians know and the US should too, is that Putin wants it all. He has never accepted Ukraine's right to exist and he wants Ukraine back. Any glance at his comments and writings teaches us that Putin has been clear all along about his territorial ambitions. He dreams and plots a return to a greater Russia and Putin is backing up his future plans by his huge increase in weapons production.
It was after all George Santayana who wrote that 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
That's why this Anchorage summit now looks a lot like the 1938 Munich agreement when Hitler was given the Sudeten Land and the fate of the Czechoslovakian state was signed away, without the Czech president present.
This moment of Déjà vu is because the US and other Nato nations have failed to accept the wider context in which this Russian War of aggression sits. In front of our eyes, a New Axis of authoritarian states has been growing in mutual support and strength – China, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
This is why the White House's foreign policy towards the war has been inconsistent and wrong. First, they claim that Ukraine is not their concern but should be Europe's, as theirs is Taiwan.
Second, that if Trump strikes up a strong personal relationship with Putin, this will somehow draw Putin away from China.
I am afraid this is an utterly wrongheaded understanding of Russia's relationship with China. President Xi Jinping has since the beginning of the war supported Russia, economically by buying Russian oils and gas and diplomatically by ensuring the non-aligned states are supportive of the Kremlin. After all, Xi made it abundantly clear to Putin at the start of the war that China had a 'no limits' partnership with Moscow.
Furthermore, Xi knows that if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, China's ambitions will be hugely strengthened in Taiwan. For it will have shown how weak and ineffectual Nato nations have become and make it much more unlikely that the US and its allies will have the resolve to act should China move on Taiwan.
Only recently, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi underlined this when he said that Beijing could not accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine.
As Russia ramps up military production, so too China. In naval production capacity alone, China now outstrips the US and Nato.
As European leaders try to find positive things to say about Anchorage, there is the overwhelming sense that Putin has run rings around US and European leaders. Even this so-called commitment to guarantee any peace agreement by the US isn't real, it's just words to placate Europe and the UK.
Russia knows that when European leaders talk tough, too many of them are breaching the sanctions on Russia in their selfish pursuit of oil and gas.
It's not just that Trump didn't discuss a ceasefire. It appears that he went much further and engaged in a land for peace discussion – the appeasement of a brutal dictator, who will come back for more.
I see that some commentators think this is a clever move, they are wrong. If the West appeases Putin in a land for peace deal, then we will have made Putin and Xi much stronger and they will be back. Or as Churchill said:
'This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.'