The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

Henry Coleman, (he/him), S10 explores the links between the war in Ukraine and tensions in the South China Sea.

Since it began in February 2022, Putin’sWar in Ukraine has been a constant source of headlines, both in newspapers and on websites. It is a war that has caused thousands of deaths, razed cities to the ground, spiked gas prices globally and even caused the sale of one of the closest football clubs to our school, Chelsea.This war feels close, very close, and its effects can be felt daily, and although the world wars may seem like a story from the distant past, with few left to remember them, a threat of a third, although faint, exists.And, let’s face it, the consequences would be even graver. back to 2014, with the Russian annexation of Crimea on the 18th of March.This was a result of pro-Russian protests in Ukraine after then President, Viktor Yanukovych, sought refuge in Moscow after refusing to strengthen ties with the European Union. Since then, on and off conflicts have occurred in the Donbas region and other areas of Eastern Ukraine. The Russia-UkraineWar dates

However, a much older conflict also exists in Eastern Asia between China and its democratic island neighbour, Taiwan.This began shortly afterWW2, in the late 1940s, when the Taiwanese government broke away from China and made Taipei its capital. Neither Russia nor China are a part of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) but they have recently agreed a form of alliance of their own, with China recently abstaining from the United Nations vote on whether Russia’s annexation of four Eastern Ukrainian provinces on the 30th of September was legal.These two nations are amongst the most powerful in theWorld, and both possess nuclear weapons. China publicly claims its desire to occupy Taiwan, and President Xi, having just been re-elected for a third term at the time of writing, has announced this as one of his primary goals.A recent counterattack fromTaiwan against a Chinese drone flying over Taiwan’s islands suggests an invasion, similar to the one in Ukraine, may be in the initial stages.

At the time of writing, an effective counter-offensive by Ukraine is still ongoing after several months, with their forces pushing to retake Kherson, a major city in the south, near Crimea. However, Russia is using missiles to target civilian areas and have blocked off civilian escape routes; such inhuman acts of cruelty are horrific and terrible, and may well constitute war crimes. Russia is using the retreat as an excuse and Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if he must; if this were to happen, there is the potential that a war would break out, and a full nuclear war between NATO and a Russian Chinese alliance would likely cause billions of deaths. Although this remains a very unlikely outcome, and one currently far from the minds of most people, it is a possibility that seems more tangible now than at any time since the ColdWar, with two conflicts at very different stages involving countries that have a nuclear arsenal and have threatened to use it.The thought is terrifying but in such times we can only hope for a positive and peaceful outcome to one of the largest scale wars in the 21st century.

52