What Is the U.S. Doing to Counter China in the Indo-Pacific?

Deanna Lee

You're listening to Policy Minded, a podcast by RAND. I'm Deanna Lee. Any military conflict between the U.S. and China would be extremely destructive. So what's the U.S. doing in the Indo-Pacific to prepare for a potential clash, or better yet, to prevent a conflict from happening in the first place? How might China view and react to U.S. military activities in the region? And what could happen if Beijing were to effectively blockade Taiwan? Here to answer these questions and to discuss U.S. efforts to counter aggression by China is Kristen Gunness. She's a senior policy researcher here at RAND and former director of the Navy Asia-Pacific Advisory Group at the Pentagon. Kristen, thanks for being here.

Kristen Gunness

Thank you for having me.

Deanna Lee

Before we dive into some of your research, let's set the stage. We're recording this in late May. So at a really high level, how would you describe the current geopolitical climate in the Indo-Pacific? And how would describe the U.S.-China relationship?

Kristen Gunness

So right now the geopolitical climate in the Indo-Pacific, I would describe as stable, as it has been, but there are still regional flashpoints that exist and those are still present and in some ways growing more acute given increased tensions over Taiwan and increased tensions with the U.S.-China relationship. Those flashpoints include territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where China has conducted a number of activities in the gray zone, for example, to coerce U.S. allies and partners around those territorial disputes. It includes the China-Japan relationship and the dispute over the Senkaku Islands and a lot of the activities, again, in the gray zone, but activities that China has done to coerce Japan in that regard. And it of course also includes Taiwan and the relationship between China and Taiwan and also the U.S.-China relationship. The U.S.-China relationship has largely focused, as most people know in the last several months, on the economic aspect of the relationship. So the tariffs and the trade war has consumed a lot of the media attention and also a lot of diplomatic attention. And the economic relationship has largely been, over the years, a significant buffer in the U.S.-China relationship that has mitigated other tensions. And so this hasn't disappeared; Beijing and Washington have both hit pause, I think, on the trade war in many respects, and so their general willingness to limit the amount of economic degradation that could potentially take place. But it does speak to these other tensions and whether we can continue to count on the economic relationship to mitigate some of them.

Deanna Lee

You mentioned what China has been doing in the gray zone. Can you define for our listeners what a gray zone activity is?

Kristen Gunness

Sure. A gray zone activity is something that falls below the escalation threshold of actual armed conflict. And so for example, the tools that China uses or the levers that it pulls in the gray zone include everything from economic coercion; so things like stopping the export of rare earths to the United States; it includes things like using the Chinese Coast Guard and paramilitary forces, like the People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia, which is basically their fishing fleets to coerce rival claimants around the territorial disputes in the South China Sea; it also includes things like disinformation campaigns and cyber. And so there's a range of tools and levers that China uses to coerce countries in the region.

Deanna Lee

Let's talk about one aspect of how the U.S. is countering China in the Indo-Pacific. You co-authored a study examining U.S. efforts to increase military access in the region. What exactly has the U.S. been doing in this regard, and why?

Kristen Gunness

So the U.S. has been bolstering relationships with allies and partners in the military cooperation sphere for many years now, and we've seen some good results from that. That includes largely three bins of cooperation. The first is military training and exercises. So we've increased military exercises with various partners, like the Philippines, like Japan. It also includes changing posture in various allies and partners. And so, for example, recently the U.S. military deployed the Typhon Missile System to the Philippines. And that's something that China was not happy about, but that was a posture change that signaled increased cooperation between the U.S. and Philippine militaries. And then the third type of activity that the U.S. does in the region is military activity. So increased exercises, for example, with allies and partners outside of the region. And so, for example bringing in a European allies and partners, Germany conducted a Taiwan straight transit several months ago, doing things like freedom of navigation and operations in coordination with U.S. allies and partners has also been an area that the U.S. has used to increase cooperation.

Deanna Lee

Now, obviously, we're talking about these activities are occurring during peacetime. How might these efforts translate into military access during a potential future conflict with China?

Kristen Gunness

So it really depends on the ally or partner that you're talking about in terms of how that would translate into actual military access. And it is a big question, because when we talk about what would deter China, part of what would to deter China is whether China believes that the United States would have access to these military capabilities in a conflict. And so when you take a country like Japan, for example, Japan is very reliant on the U.S. security umbrella. And so Japan would likely allow a greater level of U.S. military access in conflict than another country, which is maybe not as reliant on the U.S. security umbrella. So one example would be Singapore. So Singapore has its own interests. It's got economic interests with China. It wants to continue to be a regional hub for economics and business. So even though Singapore has a very close relationship with the United States, it may not allow the same level of military access as a country like Japan. And so it really depends on the various interests of the leaders of each country, as well as the relationship that they specifically have with the Unites States. And of course, Japan is also a treaty ally, so that makes a big difference as well. So I think we, to answer your question, I think would expect varying levels of military access. The country that we would most count on would be Japan because of that relationship.

Deanna Lee

I'm assuming this might also depend on the country, but what could the U.S. do to increase the chances that some of these countries say yes to access requests when Washington does need them?

Kristen Gunness

Yeah, that's a good question. And it definitely does depend on the country. Some of the policy options that the United States would have include providing a security guarantee, for example. And that's obviously, in some ways, a problematic thing to do. But it is, for example, with the Philippines, providing sort of an ironclad security guarantee that we would defend Philippine territory if China attacked it, if they provided us certain access. And we have had some headway with the Philippines in terms of renegotiating things like the basing agreements and things like that that have recently happened. With other countries, I think it's really difficult, but I think it is important to be sensitive to their fears. A lot of the Southeast Asian countries are particularly fearful of China's economic retaliation, even more so than some of the military. Aspects of that. And so even things like increasing our economic engagement with places like Indonesia, would be, or Malaysia, would be very helpful. China right now has definitely a larger, in terms of economic relationship, a much larger economic relationship with those countries than we do. So there are areas even outside of the military realm that we could look to increase our relationship with these countries and potentially increase access.

Deanna Lee

And how important are these efforts, both right now and in the future? Why does the United States need to, you know, keep pulling on all these levers?

Kristen Gunness

Well, I think it's important because the United States has vested interests in the Asia-Pacific, and we have willing allies and partners, many of the countries there are balancing between the United States and China. And I think it is important in terms of being able to protect those interests, protect freedom of navigation, protect some of the those bigger issues that, you know, you want to balance what the coercive activities that China is doing. And so everything we can do now to position ourselves in a way where we might maintain an advantage if tensions were to spiral into a conflict, and we'd be able to pull on some of those levers to have those countries assist us more in a conflict I think would be very helpful.

Deanna Lee

Before the break, we were discussing your research on U.S. military access in the Indo-Pacific and how it's key to preparing for potential conflict, which of course is something the U.S. is trying to avoid. But you've also studied what U.S. military activities might trigger a reaction from China, a reaction that could even set off a full-blown conflict. What did you learn in that study?

Kristen Gunness

Uh, so we, what we did in that study was we looked at specifically the drivers of China's reactions and what specifically would cause the most acute concern from Beijing. And then therefore what we could do to sort of mitigate some of that concern while still posturing ourselves in a strong way to deter, uh, as possible. And so some of those concerns, just to highlight a few of them, include the economic sensitivities that China has. So a growing economy is key to the Chinese Communist Party's regime legitimacy. They view that as one of the key pillars of that legitimacy. And so anything that they view from the U.S. side that might restrict their access through areas like the Malacca Strait, some of the choke points where they get their energy and their oil, that would cause, for example, a very acute concern for China. So China watches activities that the United States does, such as carrier strike group operations in the South China Sea that are near some of these choke points. And even though, of course, we have never threatened to cut off anything like that, any sort of capabilities that we demonstrate that could potentially do that would cause Beijing acute concern. So that's one example. Another example is a location and the country in which you have your posture enhancement creates varying concerns for China depending on where that is. One example is when we deployed the theater high altitude missile defense system THAAD in South Korea in 2017. That caused acute concern in Beijing because they looked at that as the United States creating a missile defense architecture, the fact that it was very close to China. The fact that it could potentially collect intelligence on Chinese launch capabilities and things like that caused acute concern. And Beijing reacted with a sort of multifaceted campaign against South Korea that included economic retaliation, included canceling of high-level military engagements, and a number of other activities. These are just examples of different types of ways that the United States can place capabilities on allied and partner soil or conduct activities in and around the region that might cause China concern. China's reactions vary depending on what they see and what they perceive. Again, going back to your gray zone comment earlier that we were talking about, they have a lot of different levers to pull. A lot of their reactions are a mixture of military posturing. We've seen them, for example, the PLA conduct some exercises in response to various things the United States and Taiwan have done. We've see them do, again, economic retaliation. We've some information operation type activities. And so there's varying responses that China would have to this. And I think the challenge is how to best calibrate our activities and our posture with China's reaction where we send a message and we deter, but we don't end up escalating into a full armed conflict. And that, of course, is a lot of the work that we do.

Deanna Lee

Right. And can you give an example of a U.S. action that sort of strikes that balance between deterrence, effective deterrence but not necessarily soliciting a reaction or, you know, acute concern?—I believe this is a term you used—from Beijing.

Kristen Gunness

Yes, I think I will return to the example I mentioned earlier with the Typhon missile deployment in the Philippines. I think that's been a really good example of, you know, initially that deployment was supposed to be rotational and it's become a permanent fixture and China's not been happy with it, but I think it sends a very clear message of U.S.-Philippine solidarity, you know military interoperability, increased cooperation in a way that sends a very clear signal to Beijing, but is not so escalatory that, you know, they have to react to it. And so far, they haven't done much. They've done some more, we've seen increased coercion of the Philippines in and around the territorial disputes that might be linked to that. But beyond that, it's been sort of just statements from Beijing about how they're pretty unhappy about it.

Deanna Lee

Back to U.S. military access in the region for a moment. I'm wondering how China generally perceives U.S. efforts to gain military access in the region, Is that something that makes the list of potential triggers for Beijing?

Kristen Gunness

Well, I think that they expect us to keep trying to gain military access. So it's not necessarily a trigger. But it really depends on what military access. For example, I think they would be concerned if Japan sort of changed course and changed its policy and allowed the United States to position different types of missile defense systems, more offensive type capabilities in Japan, for example, that would be concerning to Beijing because that would signal a policy shift in Japan and it would signal potentially a different aspect of the U.S.-Japan relationship. And so we've seen Beijing be co ncerned about things like that. And they do watch, you know, they watch very carefully what we deploy, but they also watch very careful what happens when we can't deploy something. If an ally or partner says, "No, no, we're not gonna do that." And there's a conversation out in the public, Beijing pays very close attention to those aspects as well. And I think that does all figure into China's perception about, again, if there were to be a conflict, who would come to the U.S.'s aid, how much access we would have. And these all factor into their calculations about how they would go about a conflict.

Deanna Lee

How can you effectively anticipate what China's reaction to U.S. changes in defense posture or to U.S. military activities will be? What's the risk of China misinterpreting what the U.S. is doing?

Kristen Gunness

Well, I think that that speaks to when you when we do a posture enhancement, how carefully it needs to be thought through in terms of the messaging, whether you even want China to see it or not. Obviously some things are very visible, like deploying a missile to the Philippines, but there are other posture enhancements you could do, which are maybe not as visible and China wouldn't know about it necessarily unless you chose to reveal it. And so with any of these, the signaling. You know, needs to be thought through in advance. Also, for example, with posture enhancements in Japan, what's Japan going to say about it? How do they message it? And a good example of this is when I talked about THAAD in South Korea, the message, so that was actually aimed at North Korea, that posture enhancement. It was not aimed at China at all, but we didn't really think that much, I think at the time, about how China would react to it. China completely misinterpreted that, thought it was aimed at, China, and, you know, had all these ... reactions to it. So that's a good example of when we understood that China was concerned, we did message that this is for North Korea. They didn't believe us. So there is this sort of baseline paranoia in general that China has vis-a-vis the U.S. and so that's kind of what you're starting from. So yeah, it's a very tricky question, but I think it's basically on what's observable, what you know they're going to see, how you message it, how your partner messages it, or your ally. I mean, China's pretty obvious, I think, about when it like, I mean these exercises I was talking about, these PLA exercises are clear. I mean, they happened right after, you know, like the Speaker Pelosi visit, or they happened after President Lai's inauguration in Taiwan, or they, you now, so they happen, one of them happened after Taiwan's National Day and President Lai's speech. And so they do send a very clear signal, but the signal is not just, hey, we're upset. It's also, hey we have these capabilities. Hey, we can use them in different ways. And so we're showing you what we have because that is their deterrent, right?

Deanna Lee

OK, so we've covered what the U.S. is doing in the Indo-Pacific. We just talked about how China might respond to certain moves by Washington and how it has responded. Now let's shift gears and discuss China's activities in the region, which have been increasingly aggressive. They've raised the spectre of conflict. We talked about those gray zone activities. A potential invasion of Taiwan is probably what we see most in the media, but you studied another scenario that I want to explore. Can you explain what that scenario was?

Kristen Gunness

Yeah, so we did a study on a quarantine of Taiwan. So if China were to quarantine Taiwan and restrict either certain ships from going in and out of Taiwan, or restrict access in some way to Taiwan, and that's a little bit different from a typical blockade scenario that we talk about, which would be a precursor to an invasion where China sets up a blockade where nothing comes in and of Taiwan and then conducts missile strikes, for example, an amphibious invasion scenario. That's more of what you see talked about in the media and at conferences and whatnot. But a soft quarantine of Taiwan would be a little bit different. This would be where China would demonstrate control of the maritime and airspace through restricting select, you know, types of, again, ships or restricting aircraft or restricting certain types of supplies or imports in some way to show that they can control the maritime and air space, but they aren't necessarily restricting everything. And it's more of a strategy to put the burden of escalation on the United States, for example, to either confront the Chinese ships instituting the quarantine or find a way to break the quarantine, which again can sort of spiral out of control. And so this is something that people have become increasingly worried about because China has a range of gray zone paramilitary capabilities that it can use to restrict the maritime and airspace around Taiwan. And we've seen it demonstrate these capabilities in some of the recent PLA exercises that it's done actually since 2022 when Speaker Pelosi's visit happened. And then they had a big exercise after that. That was the first time they really involved the Chinese Coast Guard and some of the paramilitary forces. And since then, there's been a lot of these, there's been several of these exercises that have practiced this type of quarantine-blockade scenario.

Deanna Lee

And a soft quarantine like this would still be a very big escalatory step, correct?

Kristen Gunness

It would be, yes, it would be. Beijing might assess that it is less escalatory, and they might also assess that the United States would be unwilling to risk conflict, or Taiwan would be unwilling to risk conflict, so that we wouldn't necessarily challenge it. And so that's where it becomes a bit of a problem, because then it goes on for a while. And Beijing might also asses, for example, that if it goes long enough that they can negotiate something with Taipei. So I think that's the thinking behind it.

Deanna Lee

Sure. And obviously the U.S. does not want to find itself in such a position. So what can it do to prevent this from happening in the first place?

Kristen Gunness

Well, I think it's really hard to prevent it from happening in the first place if China does decide to go down that route. But I think, again, sending the message that the United States will defend Taiwan, that we have interests in the region, that we are continuing to be present in the region, and that we will push back on these types of efforts in the gray zone. I think, you know, just sort of, in some ways, staying in the course of what we've been doing, which has worked from deterring China from, from doing something like this so far. I mean, I will say it is a risky proposition from Beijing's standpoint to, um, you, know, a, a quarantine works until it doesn't, until someone confronts you and then, and then what happens? And so in some, it is quite a risky action for them to undertake.

Deanna Lee

So speaking hypothetically, let's say it does happen. Beijing implements this quarantine. What would it take to break it? And what could the U.S. consider doing in response? What does confronting China on this look like?

Kristen Gunness

Well, the options could range from everything from actually running the blockade or running the quarantine. So just sailing your ship through it and seeing what they do. That's one option. Obviously, that could lead to a range of not so great outcomes. Another option is to just escort ships through and try and clear it with them in advance and say, well, here's what we're bringing in and here's why. And, you know, if you escort, for example, an ally or partner ship. It's not a U.S. ship, but a ship flag from another country that they may not want to have involved. That would be one way to sort of push back on the quarantine without maybe escalating it. And the other option is to find ways to resupply Taiwan so it's not so dependent on whatever China is trying to stop from coming in. And that obviously depends on what they're trying to do, or what China is tying to do in terms of what it's stopping. But anyway, those are three ways to push back. Obviously, none of those are perfect, and they could all result in something, in a spiraling escalation type situation.

Deanna Lee

We've covered a lot today. We've talked about U.S. access in the Indo-Pacific, how China perceives U.S. military activities, we just discussed this soft quarantine of Taiwan as a potential scenario. All of these issues kind of coalesce around U.S. efforts to counter Chinese aggression and deter further Chinese aggression, manage escalation. What's the one thing you want our listeners to take away from today's conversation about this issue?

Kristen Gunness

I would say it's that managing escalation, countering and deterring China is a multifaceted process. There is not one lever that's better than another, but it really needs to be coordinated across the government. We need to use all elements of national power for it to be thoughtful about it. I think the conversation needs to happen with our allies and partners in terms of understanding their perspectives, their sensitivities to, for example, China's actions in the gray zone, their ideas for how to counter it, ways that have worked in countering China's actions—because some of them have worked. So it needs to be a intentional multifaceted effort.

Deanna Lee

I think that's all the time we have for today. You can learn more about the research we discussed on this episode at rand.org/policyminded. And a big thank you to our guest, Kristen Gunness, for being here.

Kristen Gunness

Thank you so much for having me.

Deanna Lee

And thanks to our listeners. This episode was produced by me, Deanna Lee. I recorded it, along with Evan Banks, who also edited the episode. RAND's Director of Digital Outreach is Pete Wilmoth. We'll see you next time. RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.