EASTORA REPORT | The next crisis over Taiwan, Richard Moore fears, could begin with a misreading of two wars thousands of miles away. If China’s leader decides that the United States and its allies lack the resolve to confront Russia in Ukraine or Iran’s rulers, the former MI6 chief warned, Beijing may draw a dangerous conclusion about Western power.
“Xi Jinping is watching very carefully what’s happening in Ukraine. He’s watching what’s happening over Iran,” Moore told Anthony Scaramucci at the SALT London conference on November 3. The conversation was published on November 9.
Moore argued that Xi could interpret Western hesitation as evidence of a wider decline, strengthening a belief he said took root around the 2008 global financial crisis. Such a perception could affect Beijing’s calculations over Taiwan even without any sudden change on the battlefield.
The former British intelligence chief was careful about the timing. “I don’t see that happening now,” he said of a potential miscalculation over Taiwan. His concern was that confidence might grow if Beijing came to believe Washington and its allies no longer had the will to resist powerful adversaries.
Ukraine was central to that warning. Moore said opposing Vladimir Putin mattered not only for Europe’s security but because China was weighing the outcome. He warned that Putin would become more ambitious if confronted with a lack of resolve, describing the Russian leader as ideologically determined to subjugate Ukraine.
Iran presented a different test. Moore said Tehran’s economy was under enormous pressure, but its leadership had a high tolerance for hardship and might withstand it far longer than Western observers expected. He feared both conflicts could drag on for years as governments struggled to manage multiple crises.
Asked later whether Taiwan faced a threat now, Moore suggested Xi might prefer to tighten pressure gradually and achieve his aims without a military confrontation. That possibility did not rule out other outcomes. The danger, in Moore’s account, was that Beijing could make a decision about Taiwan based on what it thought the West lacked: the will to stan