New research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) urges Indo-Pacific governments to deepen security ties and expand people-to-people, technology and diplomatic cooperation with Taipei to enhance regional stability and bolster Taiwan’s resilience amid growing Chinese military pressure.
The analysis, detailed in the second instalment of ASPI’s Pressure Points series — a world first online resource tracking the activity and behaviour of the People’s Liberation Army in the South China Sea and beyond — was released this morning.
While Part 1 examined China’s air and maritime coercion within the first island chain, this instalment explores Beijing’s coercion across the Taiwan Strait, providing detailed analysis of events around Asia’s most volatile flashpoint.
It examines how Beijing frames its claim to Taiwan, the coercive tools it increasingly wields to enforce that claim, how Taipei is responding to mounting pressure, and how other governments are managing the growing risk of confrontation.
Drawing on extensive wargaming conducted by ASPI in June, it also details potential scenarios that President Xi Jinping may pursue to forcibly unify Taiwan. The result is a concise and interactive account of one of the Indo-Pacific’s most consequential flashpoints.
While Beijing’s coercion of Taiwan is not new, the report highlights that under Xi it has expanded and intensified dramatically.
“Beijing now employs military and paramilitary actions, economic pressure, espionage and interference, information and narrative warfare, cyber operations, diplomatic coercion, and lawfare,” the report states.
People’s Liberation Army aircraft and warships now operate around the island with such regularity that what once constituted a crisis has been normalised. These incursions are carefully calibrated — provocative enough to signal dominance, restrained enough to avoid triggering outright conflict.
The cumulative effect is to shrink Taiwan’s operating space, desensitise the region to China’s military activity, and normalise coercion as the baseline of cross-Strait relations.
The research notes that countries looking to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait must balance deterrence with the risk of escalation.
“While supporting Taiwan carries political, economic and security risks, allowing Beijing to advance its strategic objectives unopposed poses an even greater threat to regional stability.”
The authors highlight that while the US remains the primary counterweight to Beijing’s ambitions, it cannot shoulder the burden alone. Broader coalitions of like-minded partners are needed to share risk, reinforce deterrence and uphold freedom of navigation through routine, visible transits of the Taiwan Strait.
The report outlines five practical areas where partners can strengthen Taiwan’s resilience within the boundaries of their One-China policies:
- People-to-people engagement– including through academic, civil-society and expert exchanges.
- Technology cooperation– including joint work on dual-use technologies such as drones, communications networks and supply-chain security.
- Diplomatic support– particularly in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and among Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies, where Taipei is most vulnerable to China’s influence.
- Training and resilience – to help Taiwan prepare its civilian and military systems for crisis.
- Shared planning– on maritime security, energy continuity and emergency logistics.
Together, these measures form a practical framework for governments seeking to support Taiwan’s resilience while managing escalation risks in one of the Indo-Pacific’s most consequential flashpoints.
The report can be found here.
