TAIWAN WOULD WIN EVEN MORE EASILY:

Russia's advance into Ukraine has been stalled, stymied and in many cases deflected by local armed forces, with multiple Western military observers telling VICE News they were shocked at how bad Russia's military is doing. The conflict is dragging out longer than many had expected, while a battery of economic and diplomatic sanctions from the West has threatened to cripple Russia on the homefront and stir civil unrest.

"China would have liked this to have gone very, very well for Russia, and had it happened quickly and relatively uneventfully, they would have gained something from it."

The Russian canary isn't quite as chirpy as it was six days ago--and those paying close attention are more likely to be heeding its message as a warning than a rallying cry, experts say.

"China would have liked this to have gone very, very well for Russia, and had it happened quickly and relatively uneventfully, they would have gained something from it," Blaxland told VICE World News on Tuesday. "But the untidy, very ugly scenes emerging from Ukraine are having the opposite effect, and the crystallising of resolve internationally is really running against China's interests in terms of its ability to divide and conquer and pursue its interests in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and Taiwan."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is almost definitely serving as a trial run for what happens when a country brazenly defies Western pressure in pursuing its own interests. But while before, Xi might have looked at Putin as a sort of inspiration, the Russian leader is now proving to be more of a crash dummy. According to Wen-Ti Sung, an academic fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World, that's likely to give China pause when it comes to its own geopolitical strategies.

"I think Beijing is likely shocked or at least surprised by the degree of difficulty that Russia has encountered... and the degree of principally Western but, broadly speaking, international unity," Sung told VICE World News from Taiwan, where he is currently doing fieldwork. "The amount of trouble Russia is having in Ukraine shows that it's very difficult even for a nuclear-armed great power to execute a blitzkrieg and do it successfully without much international pushback and sanctions. That will make China think twice [about Taiwan]."

Tweet   @brothersjudd