The Impact of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on East Asia

Although unfolding a continent away, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is detrimental to the strategic stability of East Asia, which is already riven by its own unresolved conflicts and territorial control disputes. The degradation of global security norms, the disruption to global energy supplies and the need to pick sides for or against Russia have each contributed to making East Asia’s security a more complex Rubik’s cube to manage. This article examines the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Russia–China relations; Taiwan Strait’s stability; Japan’s defence policy; and the Korean peninsula. How and on what terms Russia’s invasion ends will carry another set of impacts and lessons for East Asia. In closing, the lessons of freezing conflicts in East Asia are applied to the emerging situation in Eastern Europe: of an unresolveable and unwinnable war that may become a lasting feature of European security, in the way that unresolved wars over Korea and Taiwan have become enduring realities in East Asia.