Resisting China’s push for a ‘new normal’ in the Taiwan Strait

China’s grandstanding over Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan reveals a need for stronger coordination between the region’s democracies, Huynh Tam Sang writes.

In the aftermath of the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August, China has assertively pushed to regularise military exercises closer to Taiwan than it has previously.

In short, it has sought to make exercises it originally conducted temporarily in response to the visit a permanent fixture of its power projection.

In a way this new normal is just the old normal amplified.

In the month before Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China repeatedly flexed its military muscle, conducting incursions into the island’s air defence identification zone.

As the visit approached, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) escalated its power projection, crossing the Taiwan Strait median line with PLA fighter jets and using PLA Navy carriers to encircle Taiwan.

Even compared with its actions during the 1996 Taiwan crisis, China’s large-scale military exercises around the island of Taiwan were flagrant. The PLA conducted its exercises closer to the island with a level of intensity that was much more threatening than in the past.

If this level of open military posturing were to become the new normal, nobody in the region would benefit. Not only could it escalate tensions directly to armed conflict due to high risks of miscalculation, but even without open fire, cross-strait relations could become too volatile for any meaningful dialogue to take place.

More on this: Conflict over Taiwan is not inevitable

The states of the region have to try and prevent this. If China’s extreme military measures are left unchecked, Chinese leaders could see this as a ‘failed’ or ‘weak’ response from regional powers, and as a concession. This could embolden hawkish leaders within China, priming the PLA to further pressure Taiwan or engage in other assertive military behaviour.

Apart from its international consequences, this situation would be a disaster for the security of the people of Taiwan.

Of course, there are many ways to challenge China’s behaviour. While avoiding war in the strait must always come first, the United States and its allies should also not ‘let a good crisis go to waste’.

The region’s China strategy needs a revival, starting with the United States. The countries of the Asia Pacific should encourage it to pursue a ‘two-track policy’ similar to how it approached the Cold War.

In the Cold War, the United States sought military containment of the Soviet Union on one hand, and the construction of a strong network of diplomatic partners on the other.

To apply similar logic to China and its behaviour in the Taiwan Strait, the region’s democracies should utilise American resources to contain China’s assertiveness militarily, while constructing a network of cooperation.

In military containment terms, these countries could strengthen deterrence by carefully conducting joint air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait.

More on this: A turbulent year ahead in cross-strait relations

With a focus on ‘innocent passage’ through the strait and freedom of navigation operations, the United States and regional powers like Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and others could use military operations to show the gravity of their disapproval of China’s aggressive behaviour. This will give their defiance of China’s unilateral and illegal claims in the region a grounding in hard power. As they do this, they should also build their soft power, and consolidate alignments that the United States has been forming across the region with its allies into a stronger, larger group.

For example, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), which comprises the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, should offer more pragmatic benefits to its members to encourage better collaboration and prevent members feeling unvalued.

The inclusion of Taiwan in the Quad or a body like it should also be on the table.

While such an extreme step may have been an unrealistic proposition in the past, the PLA’s growing belligerence has changed this.

The United States would have to do this while continuing to espouse its ‘One China’ policy, but there is potential for a workaround. Granting Taiwan its own status of the Quad, or a new grouping like it, not as a member but as a ‘dialogue partner’ or something similar, could be a viable approach. This could make Taiwan more secure without turning up the heat too much.

Regardless of its exact shape, this experience shows that the Indo-Pacific needs a multilateral approach designed to institutionalise cooperation among like-minded countries on this issue.

Unfortunately, as the buffer between Chinese power and the people of Taiwan shrinks, a return to norms from before Pelosi’s visit isn’t achievable.

The Asia-Pacific region needs a new approach – one that balances strength with dialogue. Above all, its leaders must remember that in a crisis, complacency can be as dangerous a choice as acting rashly.