The G-20 meeting held in Indonesia, where President Joko Widodo passed the baton of the presidency to Narendra Modi, highlighted the importance of the Indo-Pacific. For the high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, a "region of the future", but also one of growing "insecurity and tensions". Area formed by the oceans that give it its name, with shores on practically all the continents –Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South America– and with a double condition of risk and opportunity.
As a focus of opportunities, it should be noted that the Indo-Pacific generates 60% of world GDP and two thirds of global growth. For the EU it is an enclave on which its security and prosperity depend – 40% of European foreign trade crosses the South China Sea – and the second destination for its exports. It also constitutes a space for competition between Beijing and Washington to shape the new global order. The Indo-Pacific hosts a network of networks of convergence and rivalry, of alliances that forge interdependence in trade, transport, the environment and defense, where the new global foreign policy strategies converge: the Quad or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue formed by Australia , India, Japan and the US; the AUKUS, a trilateral defense cooperation between Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA; the flexible formulas of the mini-laterals between three countries for specific topics agreed. Or, on the contrary, large economic market initiatives that seek to integrate the greatest number of countries: the Trans-Pacific Agreement (CPTPP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Association (RCEP) or the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) presented at May 2022 by the US. Without forgetting the geopolitical initiatives of Beijing such as the New Silk Road or the Global Security Initiative.
Taiwan is located in this space of overlapping and conflicting interests. Although it has a relatively small portion of territory, with a surface area somewhat larger than that of Sicily, it has a unique value due to its location, development of its technological industry, and political model of governance.
The geographical position of the island, between the seas of Japan, East China, South China and the Philippines, make it a vital political entity within the Indo-Pacific, so that in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait the shipping lines through which world maritime trade runs could be interrupted, affecting the second, third and thirteenth largest economies in the world, those of China, Japan and South Korea.
The high development of the microprocessor industry – where TSMC, Apple's main manufacturer of chips for artificial intelligence and computing, plays an essential role – places Taiwan at the top of the production of computers, mobile phones, cars, planes and missiles. And therefore, on which it depends, advanced technology electronics. Again, a hypothetical confrontation with China, accidental or planned, even in the event that the People's Liberation Army took over the island and with it these critical technologies, the development of the industry would be seriously affected. For this reason, and in order to reduce exposure to possible risk scenarios, the companies in the sector, supported by their respective governments, are considering diversifying their businesses and working with Taiwan and TSMC to produce outside the island. Among the countries that have benefited most from these measures is India, where Apple will soon move part of its iPhone production.
One aspect that makes Taiwan a challenge in the eyes of Beijing and increases its referential value in the Indo-Pacific framework is its political system. A parliamentary model, supported by a solid civil society, with high levels of freedom of expression, whose citizens enjoy the benefits of individual liberties. These issues offer a powerful counternarrative to the official position of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), critical of what it calls "Western democracy" and the universality of human rights. The success of the Taiwanese system calls into question and therefore undermines the credibility of the ideal of what Joshua Cooper has called the “Beijing consensus” and which Beijing seeks to offer to the global south as an alternative to the dominant liberal model. A development option based on economic growth and innovation, under the strict tutelage of a centralized, one-party government.
These factors – geographical position, centrality in technological production chains, and political openness – make Taiwan a crucial enclave in the Indo-Pacific and a focus of competition between the US and China. Any friction between the two powers linked to the island could escalate into a military conflict and jeopardize international trade and supply chains. Furthermore, for US strategic interests, a forced reunification would have disastrous consequences since it would position China in the First Island Chain, a strategic natural barrier formed by the East Asian archipelagos and stretching from Malaysia and the Philippines to the Kuril Islands, between Japan and Russia, being able to displace the North American Navy towards the margins of the second chain of islands that enters the Pacific Ocean. Faced with this contingency, his allies and supporters – Japan and South Korea – would be exposed to pressure from Beijing.
Even as Beijing has consolidated a dominant regional position through trade, New Silk Road investment, and a financial institutional architecture propped up by organizations like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), there is generally growing concern by the impact of the rise of China and its ability to project military power over the Indo-Pacific. Especially in light of the domestic policies adopted by the CCP under the presidency of Xi Jinping: the Hong Kong National Security law, the condition of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region denounced by the Human Rights Office at the United Nations, or the management of the coronavirus that has oscillated between the excesses of the zero covid policy and the sudden lifting of restrictions. But also due to the aggressiveness displayed in the South China Sea and the fear of a forced reunification in Taiwan.
The positions of the Indo-Pacific countries regarding Beijing's aspirations range from unconditional support, for example Pakistan -"indestructible iron brothers with a shared future" according to the official Chinese terminology-, to more or less open rivalry. of the great democracies of the region –Japan, India and Australia– in turn strategic allies of the US, going through the long-awaited neutrality of those nations that seek to be outside the Sino-American rivalry, among which the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The response to the tensions sparked by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan revealed this spectrum of attitudes.
In the case of India, the authorities maintained a calibrated silence. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India's foreign policy intentions, its degree of real commitment to the international order and the role it aspires to play as a world power are the subject of intense debate. Since New Delhi signed the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Washington in 2008, there has been a gradual rapprochement – intensified under the Modi mandate – towards the American power and an alignment in defense of international law that embodies the concept of “Indo-Pacific free and open”, a navigation space free from coercive interference such as those practiced by Beijing. If there is a country that has benefited the most from the consolidation of the Indo-Pacific, it is India, promoter, along with Abe Shinzo, of the new geopolitical vision and located in a predominant continental position. India is a central pillar in the Indo-Pacific strategy through its participation in the Quad and its collaboration with France and other EU countries on maritime security. But this has not meant that it has abandoned its vocation as a non-aligned power that it theoretically championed during the Cold War –as it demonstrated by abstaining from the UN resolutions against Russia– which has generated a certain degree of concern, especially in its relationship with China, with which it has a double bond of dependency and conflict.
On the one hand, both countries maintain close trade ties and participate in regional forums, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They also share the memory of a colonial past and the consequent mistrust of the West. On the other, the close complicity of Beijing with its nemesis Pakistan, or the border disputes between soldiers of both armies have brought New Delhi closer to the orbit of the US and its allies in the region. The last of the clashes took place last December, in the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, when soldiers from both armies engaged in a skirmish using sticks – the use of weapons is prohibited by mutual agreement to avoid escalation unwanted – which left wounded on both sides. The disputed and increasingly militarized border between India and China has seen increased skirmishes since 2020 when the Galwan Valley was the scene of one of the deadliest clashes in decades.
With Taiwan, India maintains ties of approximation and caution. On the one hand, there is the will to strengthen collaboration, on the other the fear of retaliation for crossing the red lines marked by Beijing. Although bilateral exchanges have grown in recent years, especially in the economic field, Beijing's lack of reciprocity in territorial disputes with India is fueling a debate in New Delhi on the efficacy of maintaining such a cautious attitude and the possibility of contemplating a rapprochement with Taiwan that includes the political sphere. Ultimately, the decision will depend on the resolution of the border disputes. The Indian Foreign Minister, S. Jaishan¬kar, recently stated that China and India were going through an “extremely difficult phase” and that the return to normality will depend on reciprocal sensitivity, respect and concern, where “The state of the border will determine the status of the relationship”.
Japan is in a different situation, deeply alarmed by a possible crisis in the Taiwan Strait, a malaise that has been intensified by the war in Ukraine. Despite the physical distance, the Russian aggression has been seen as a replicable episode on Asian soil – “there is a strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow,” Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio commented last summer. , promoting the acceleration of changes in defense matters.
This suspicion is rooted in the vision of the former Japanese Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo, promoter of the Quadrilateral, Quad, and who is credited with creating the new concept of the Indo-Pacific, a space for the fusion of the two oceans that offered the opportunity to bring India and Japan closer on security issues linked to the rise of China. He exposed it in 2007 during an official trip to New Delhi, in a speech before Parliament on the "Confluence of the two seas" referring to the spirit of cooperation between the great Asian democracies, an Asianism exercised in the name of freedom and respect mutual. Since then, Abe has defended the need for Japan to adopt a more participatory regional role, raised open support for Taiwan, and directly expressed his concern about the fate of the island, stating that "an emergency in Taiwan is a Japanese emergency and, therefore, an emergency for the Japan-US alliance.” After his assassination in 2022, the Japanese government has seconded his legacy of commitment to Taiwan. In December, Koichi Hagiuda, the Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Political Research Council, visited Taipei – the first time in almost twenty years that a senior LDP official had visited the island – and held a meeting with President Tsai Ingwen.
At present, China represents the main international threat for Japan, followed by North Korea and Russia. This is stated in the National Security Strategy published a few weeks ago, which mentions Beijing's attempts to unilaterally change the status quo in the South China Sea, its strategic alliance with Russia, and the intrusions into the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. . In addition to the direct repercussions of the tensions in the Strait: in August the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, decided that the ballistic missiles launched by the army during military exercises near Taiwan would fall within the exclusive economic zone of Japan.
Recent events have led Japan to abandon its restrictive defense stance and increase military spending, which is expected to go from 1% of GDP to 2% in 2027. With this, the Japanese power leaves behind the conditions of its defeat in World War II and moves towards a more independent and firm security posture.
On another level are those countries that seek to avoid provoking Beijing's wrath, but whose defense of the international order converges with Washington's. This is the case with South Korea, which on December 28 presented its first Indo-Pacific Strategy, “a de facto foreign policy doctrine”, in the words of Foreign Minister Park Jin. The text itself is a declaration of principles in defense of a "free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific". Regrets the reversal of universal values such as freedom, human rights and the rule of law, opposes any unilateral change of the status quo by force, points to the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, commits to supporting to the nations with which it shares its condition of liberal democracy and declares the aspiration to turn the Republic into a pivotal global State. In other words, despite the fact that Seoul at no time declares a threat from Beijing, it aligns itself in values and political vision with the democracies that have developed clearer Indo-Pacific strategies (USA, India, EU, Japan) in their criticism of the Asian power.
In a close position would be the Philippines, where the new president, Ferdinand Marcos jr. it tries to maintain a balanced equation of interests between China and the US, but in open conflict with Beijing over its maritime claims in waters close to the Philippines. During the visit of the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to Manila last August, Marcos commented that the Taiwan crisis “only highlights the importance of the relationship between the US and the Philippines. I hope we continue to develop that relationship in the face of all the changes we've been seeing."
Consequently, the fate of the Indo-Pacific is inextricably linked to the stability of Taiwan. Faced with an eventual crisis in the Strait, those countries that would be most affected are strengthening and redefining defense and security policies. As the nodal axis of a network of global interests, Taiwan reflects the shift of power towards the Indo-Pacific as a new scenario of opportunities, but also of threats in the short and medium term.
Eva Borreguero Sancho is a professor of Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid. She author of ‘India. History of a civilization'.
