What does the Ukraine crisis mean for Taiwan? That’s up for debate.

As the crisis over Ukraine threatens to explode into a full-blown Russian invasion of the country, Taiwan is closely watching from thousands of kilometers away to see how the U.S. responds and what, if any, lessons can be gleaned from the events so far.

But just what those lessons are is something that is being hotly debated.

On the surface, the similarities between the situations in Ukraine and Taiwan seem obvious. Both are Western-facing democracies that face potential existential threats from powerhouse autocratic neighbors. Both countries’ futures have been framed, at times, as critical tests of the United States’ credibility and its willingness to uphold the global rules-based order.

Some high-profile U.S. lawmakers have even argued that an American failure to forcefully respond to military action against Ukraine would invite China to carry out a similar attack on Taiwan.

“(Chinese President) Xi (Jinping) is watching what is happening, our adversaries are watching,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said recently. “If (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin can go into Ukraine with no resistance, certainly, Xi will take Taiwan. He’s always wanted this.”

They point to comments by Xi that his goal of “national rejuvenation” cannot be considered a success until Taiwan is unified with the mainland — an objective that becomes more plausible as China’s military muscle grows.

China — which calls Taiwan a “core issue” and sees it as a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary — has ramped up its military activity near the self-ruled island to an almost daily clip over the last two years. Last month, China sent 39 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the largest number since October.

Taipei itself has drawn parallels between the Ukraine crisis and the situation around Taiwan.

“Taiwan has long faced military threats and intimidation from China, and can therefore empathize with the situation in Ukraine,” Taiwan’s Presidential Office said in a statement late last month. “We support all efforts to maintain regional security, and call on all sides to step up peaceful dialogue and talks, resolve disputes in a rational manner, and work together to maintain regional stability.”

Over the weekend, the presidential office said it is closely watching the situation in the narrow strait that separates it from mainland China and raising its preparedness in response to what is happening in Ukraine. Late last month, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen ordered her National Security Council to form a task force to closely monitor developments in Ukraine and any possible impact on Taipei’s security.

Taiwan’s military, however, has not reported any significant moves by Chinese forces in recent days, and on Saturday the presidential office specifically noted that the situations in Taiwan and Ukraine remain “fundamentally different.”

In Washington, top officials in the administration of President Joe Biden have also hinted that they believe Beijing is paying close attention to the Ukraine crisis.

“Others are watching. Others are looking to all of us to see how we respond,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday without directly naming China.

The White House increasingly believes that China is gauging the U.S. response to Ukraine as a proxy for how Washington would deal with more aggressive action by Beijing against Taiwan, Bloomberg News reported over the weekend, citing three senior American officials.

Those officials, the report said, believe Beijing is studying the cohesion of the NATO alliance as it seeks to push back on Putin’s massing of forces near Ukraine’s border, and what this could signal for the U.S. system of alliances and partnerships in Asia if Xi were also to order an invasion of Taiwan.

Although the Japanese government has refrained from linking Ukraine to Taiwan, it has also watched warily as China expands its moves near the self-ruled island. Ruling party heavyweights, including former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have even gone so far as to say that a Taiwan contingency would represent an existential threat to Japan.

In a speech late last year, Abe said the Ukraine crisis could figure prominently in China’s strategic calculus toward Taiwan, calling the deployment of more than 100,000 Russian troops at Ukraine’s borders a potential “model” for Beijing.

“If the international community is unable to prevent a Russian invasion, we need to imagine what China will think when we respond,” he said.

Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund think tank, said that while Beijing is likely to be closely keeping tabs on the crisis — “with particular interest in the degree of solidarity among the U.S. and its allies and their willingness to impose costs on Russia” — its influence on the Chinese government’s assessments of U.S. power and resolve would be limited.

“I believe that Xi Jinping will not draw any conclusions about U.S. willingness to defend Taiwan based on U.S. support — or lack thereof — for Ukraine,” she said.

At least one reason for this is that the Chinese leader remains laser focused on a twice-in-a-decade Communist Party congress this fall, where Xi will be looking to secure a controversial third term as party chief.

Other experts, however, say that a feeble response by Biden could embolden Xi to take a more assertive approach to Taiwan — not necessarily an invasion but possibly a takeover of small nearby islands — as he looks to add to his bona fides ahead of the party congress.

“If Biden is seen to be hesitant, or to respond meekly or ineffectually, then Xi may be more confident to be more aggressive in the coercive campaign against Taiwan,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

But while both Taiwan and Ukraine are of historic importance to China and Russia, the strategic lessons to be gleaned from a potential conflict over Russia’s western neighbor are limited and potentially misleading — especially in terms of its effects on U.S. credibility — observers say.

Washington has maintained a “one China” policy since 1979, officially recognizing Beijing rather than Taipei, while the Taiwan Relations Act requires the U.S. to provide the self-ruled island with the means to defend itself.

Indeed, the United States has been Taiwan’s top security partner since the early 1950s, and in the years after it worked with businesses on the island to help set its economy on an upward trajectory. In recent years, Taiwan has emerged as a top 10 trading partner for the United States, while Ukraine was ranked 67th in 2019.

On the other hand, Washington’s security support for Kyiv since the fall of the Soviet Union has been limited and part of a larger approach to dealing with Moscow’s challenge to the post-Cold War order in Europe.

“This long history of engagement means that America’s global reputation and influence have far more at stake in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan than a Russian one on Ukraine,” Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote recently.

In recent years, as Washington’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region has continued to solidify, Taiwan’s status has become an even more important geopolitical issue for the U.S. From its role as an anchor in the so-called first island chain, which constrains the Chinese military from punching further into the Western Pacific, to its deeply integrated position in key semiconductor supply chains and trade networks, Taiwan’s parallels with Ukraine are scant, according to some.

“Xi will surely be watching U.S. policy toward Ukraine closely, and he might draw some tentative conclusions,” said Jacob Stokes, a fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

“But I hope Xi is also smart enough to know that the U.S. partnership with Taiwan has its own unique dynamics, and that it would be foolish to conclude that Washington’s response to the Ukraine crisis dictates how the United States would respond to a Taiwan crisis,” said Stokes, who previously served on Biden’s national security staff during his time as vice president. “There are more differences than similarities.”

Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst with the Rand Corp. think tank, said Xi was likely well aware of these differences, but would still attempt to heap pressure on Taipei if the U.S. increasingly finds itself bogged down over the Ukraine crisis.

“I think Beijing would prefer to look at a Russian invasion of Ukraine through a Taiwan lens, but the analogy simply doesn’t hold up — and Beijing knows it,” Grossman said.

“That said, Beijing is likely to accrue the benefit of having a preoccupied U.S. for a while in Eastern Europe, perhaps lending it a freer hand against Taiwan.”