US, Partners Must Implement Real Results to Deter China’s Gray-Zone Tactics in Pacific Region: Exper

The leaders' joint statement included sharp language about North Korea condemning its ballistic missile launches and malicious cyber activity. A U.S. official said the leaders shared concern about Russian military assistance for North Korea. The group also agreed to provide a new open radio access network to the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia regions. While China has been increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea, Biden said China is now looking to buy itself some diplomatic space, aggressively pursuing its interests. To discuss this all, we're joined by William Chu, the Hudson Institute's Japan Chair Fellow. Good morning, William. Good to have you with us. Great to be here. Now, President Biden told quad leaders that China is testing us with its aggression in the Indo-Pacific. What did he mean by that? Well, what President Biden meant was that China continues to be aggressive both abroad and at home. This includes incidents in the South China Sea, in both the Sabena and Second Thomas Shoals, incursions to Japanese air and sea space, as well as its continued aggression in the Taiwan Strait, and most recently with the tragedy of a 10-year-old Japanese boy who was killed by a Chinese man in Shenzhen, likely driven by Xi's overheated nationalistic rhetoric. And what this really tells us is Xi's sense of regime insecurity is leading to aggression both abroad and at home, and carries real human consequences. It's no longer just hypothetical. With all this in mind, how should the U.S. respond? I think this is an opportunity for us to build on what we've done in the quad, is to continue to work closely with our core partners, such as Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India, in building out a rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific, one that is focused on ensuring peace and prosperity so that all members of the Indo-Pacific can enjoy the fruits of transparent and free trade and security. And to make it clear that China's attempts to be an unfair player, both in diplomacy as well as in economics, will not be accepted, and to encourage them to change their behavior or to continue to face challenges. And I want to get to perhaps what you think may be very effective ways to do that, but did any of the quad's new commitments stand out to you? Well, there were two major developments, right? One is the focus on maritime domain awareness, with the four quad countries agreeing to expand interoperability in Coast Guard operations, as well as working with non-quad partners on maritime domain awareness tools. The other is, obviously, the cancer moonshot, which will aim to more effectively screen, vaccinate, and treat cervical cancer. And obviously, cancer is a major priority for President Biden, given that his son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer back in, I think, 2015. But overall, I would say the summit was more of a graceful setting off for President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida as they exit the stage. In general, how effective is the quad's approach at preventing or confronting a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan? I think a lot of that still remains to be seen. I think the quad has a lot of good concepts, but many of the activities still need to move beyond the working group stage. I think part of it has been hampered by the fact that the quad explicitly is not a security arrangement, given India's own concerns and traditional non-alignment. Whereas the U.S., Japan, and Australia are very closely aligned as allies, India is not a U.S. ally. So that limits some of the security components of the cooperation against China. That said, certainly there was a lot of attempts to move things in sort of the economic realm, such as the Quad Investors Network, the cooperation on quality infrastructure, on Open RAN, as well as undersea cables. I think those are positive moves, and I think the small moves in maritime domain awareness will eventually sort of bleed into that gray area between common goods as well as security, which overall, I hope over time, will grow into a more robust response against Chinese aggression. And what do you think would be effective? Coming back to that question, you outlined that you think the actions really do need to impact the way China behaves too. What do you think would be effective? I think in terms of effectiveness, I think that means greater cooperation between the four countries, building on the existing discussions and working groups, and actually implementing some real results in ways that matter. And I think much of that has to really focus on deliverable results, right? So things like undersea cables and ensuring, guaranteeing freedom of information flows to the Pacific Islands. That includes cooperation on Coast Guard, cooperation that address both Chinese illegal fishing that they do in the South China Sea as well as in Japanese waters. Things that essentially deter China's ability to use gray zone tactics against American, U.S. interests as well as the interests of its Quad friends in the region. I think that is where we need to start, to focus on Chinese attempts to undertake gray zone tactics and to deter them before they expand them further. And briefly on this, we all know that China thinks of Taiwan as its own, though Taiwan is independent and democratically ruled itself. How soon do you think China might try to take Taiwan as it has made moves to do so? Well, that's really hard to say. Certainly, there are people who have given estimates of 2027. Others have said 2035. The way I see it is that, as far as I'm concerned, those dates are possible dates to possibly plan against. But I think the real important thing is that it's a dynamic issue, right? So if we do more now, if we undertake greater security cooperation, if we undertake greater investments in our industrial base as well as our defense industrial base, if we continue to expand our technology cooperation with our allies to facilitate greater quality of infrastructure investment in the Pacific, these are all ways that we can increase the cost or deterrence to China from even thinking about undertaking such an operation in first place. So the way I see it is more, I can't predict when China may want to undertake such a contingency against Taiwan. But I know that if we start working with our allies more effectively right now in real ways, we can heighten the cost and possibly deter them, hopefully for the long term. All right. Thank you so much, William. Great to speak with you. Great. Thank you again.