Introduction

Introduction Brendan Taylor (bio) and Jade Guan (bio) This roundtable considers what role, if any, Asia's so-called middle powers can play in response to growing tensions across the Taiwan Strait. 1 What strategies and approaches are this category of states adopting as the likelihood of major conflict over this enduring flashpoint intensifies? How do Asia's middle powers view the costs and risks of conflict over Taiwan, and what key factors inform their assessments? To what extent do their respective approaches exhibit commonalities and potential complementarities, and to what extent are they distinct or even completely divergent? Perhaps most importantly, do this region's middle powers—either individually or in concert—have the agency to shape the course of the Taiwan flashpoint? Or are they merely pawns in a larger geopolitical game? Even if the latter is true, what strategic choices might they make, especially in the event of conflict, and with what consequences? Much ink has already been spilled over this flashpoint in recent years as tensions have intensified. The bulk of this work has centered on the three key players in this unfolding drama—China, Taiwan, and the United States—focusing primarily on Beijing's coercive tactics targeting the island, Taiwan's shifting identity politics, and an increasingly fractious Sino-U. S. relationship. 2 Some assessments have analyzed Japan-Taiwan security ties and Tokyo's likely responses in the event of a Taiwan conflict, but these have not considered Japan's role explicitly through a middle-power lens. 3 Indeed, only a small handful of studies have considered the role that End Page 2 individual Asian middle powers might play—namely Australia or South Korea—either in advance or in the event of conflict over Taiwan. 4 This is notwithstanding the significant stakes involved for these countries and the world. For instance, as modeling published by Bloomberg in January 2024 estimates, a war over Taiwan could cost an estimated 10 trillion, or 10% of global GDP, making the global financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine each appear pale by comparison. 5 It is often assumed that middle powers can exert little, if any, influence over the course of this flashpoint and the growing likelihood of catastrophic conflict. A large part of the reason for that pessimism relates to the reduced freedom for maneuver that middle powers are thought to have as a result of structural constraints caused by great-power competition. As the Canadian academic Brian Job has observed: Certain structural prerequisites are necessary for middle-power diplomacy to flourish. These have been evident in the two waves of middle-power activism since the end of WWII, first in the establishment of the UN and Bretton Woods systems and subsequently in the aftermath of the Cold War. Both have been characterized as relatively benign strategic environments with either mutually accepted boundaries on the direct, strategic competition among major powers, during what John Lewis Gaddis termed the "long peace" of the Cold War or during the 1990s with the dominance of the U. S. as a hegemonic power of global and regional security orders. In each, the middle powers shared with the U. S. a prevailing "embedded liberal" consensus on the norms and values underlying the political, economic, and security order. Multilateral and bilateral institutions facilitated the hegemonic provision of global public goods through a "rules-based order. " In these historically contingent periods, there were space and opportunity for middle-power activism. 6 In contemporary Asia, whatever autonomy or agency middle powers have at their disposal tends to be viewed primarily in terms of their capacity to navigate a course between the great powers—specifically the United States and China—that avoids needing to make "invidious choices" between End Page 3 the two. 7 Little consideration has thus far been given to the possibility that Asia's middle powers could potentially influence the Taiwan flashpoint in an active and constructive sense rather than as passive observers to an unfolding Asian tragedy. Instead, scholars of Asian security are even beginning to question the very utility of the middle-power concept, with some calling for its abandonment on the grounds that it is. . .