This article first appeared on Pacific Forum and is republished with permission. Read the original here.
Concerns regarding a potential quarantine or embargo of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been growing since 2024.
While an amphibious invasion remains the most dangerous scenario, most analysts agree it poses a range of challenges for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), despite rapid expansion and increasingly complex mission rehearsals.
These include the logistical hurdles associated with the most ambitious amphibious invasion ever attempted in history, the risk of becoming bogged down on arrival and of triggering an outside intervention and escalation.
Given these challenges, focus has shifted to how the PRC might instead seek to cut off Taiwan’s maritime supplies of energy, food, medicines and other key commodities. The purpose would not be territorial conquest but rather to pressure Taiwan’s society, potentially forcing its government to negotiate on the future of cross-Strait relations on terms favorable to Beijing.
While the PRC could achieve this objective through military blockade, many in the international community could view this as an act of war tantamount to an invasion, triggering the response Beijing seeks to avoid.
Instead, it is assessed, Beijing might employ the vast Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) to undertake boarding, inspecting and diversion operations under the guise of law enforcement, using PRC domestic legislation—by which it lays claim to the waters around and beyond Taiwan.
In combination with sabotage and cyber-attacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, as well as economic pressures on suppliers, Beijing might achieve an impact equivalent to a blockade.
Pitched below the threshold of international armed conflict, this scenario would pose dilemmas for Taiwan and the international community in formulating a response. The resulting uncertainties are likely to exacerbate the impact on Taiwan, for example by dampening economic investment in the island.
Several think tanks have already highlighted the risk of this scenario, including reports by CSIS drawing on analysis of recent Chinese exercises. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has also recently released a report, focusing on Taiwan’s energy import vulnerabilities—notably its dependence on liquified natural gas (LNG).
Such a scenario would not only be a problem for Taiwan, but for all those that depend on global maritime trade through East Asia, including Europe.
Disruption to maritime trade
Despite having several leading shipping companies, the vast majority of Taiwan’s imports depend on global fleets. LNG, for example, provides nearly 50% of the island’s energy needs yet Taiwan currently has no LNG carriers of its own and relies on vessels from Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Europe.
Shipping lines from Europe and countries in Asia also transport most of Taiwan’s other imports and exports. These lines would undoubtedly be directly impacted by any embargo or quarantine.
Even shipping lines not trading directly with Taiwan but through the region would also likely be impacted. While the CCG has stayed close to Taiwan during recent exercises, the PLA Navy has deployed to maritime choke points along the first island chain.
These extended operations serve to both block outside interventions but also detect and shadow merchant vessels as they transit into the region. Such activity could cause significant disruption to wider maritime trade.
Shipping companies, for example, might take alternative, longer, and more expensive routes to avoid the threat while insurance premiums would likely increase significantly, adding further costs.
Given the importance of these waters, accounting for two-thirds of global maritime trade, economies around the world would be impacted. While this would have repercussions across the world, Europe and East Asia would be acutely affected given their reliance on trade with each other. Their merchant fleets also rank among the largest plying these seas.
Beyond the economic implications, physical threats to mariners and assets could also become a concern. The rapid expansion of the PLA Navy and CCG has raised questions over their capacity to generate the competent crews required to operate these ships.
The unfortunate incident of August 11 in which a PLA Navy destroyer sliced the bow off a CCG cutter while both were in pursuit of a Philippines coastguard vessel suggests such fears are not unfounded. Let loose on merchant vessels transiting the region, owners and crews would likely fear the consequences.
Responsibility to protect merchant shipping
While America has led escorting, convoying, and other operations to protect merchant shipping in the distant and more recent past, the US has also often delegated these responsibilities to European allies.
During the Cold War, for example, it would more often be European countries that took the lead on Naval Control of Shipping operations in the eastern Atlantic. That freed up the US Navy to focus on carrier strike and other high-end activities.
As a result, European navies acquired considerable expertise in the types of operations required to protect merchant traffic in a crisis. That includes escorting and convoy operations, as well as the complex command and control (C2) required to coordinate vast numbers of merchant vessels across huge sea spaces. Such expertise was why the European Union’s counter-piracy mission, established in 2008 and led by the UK Navy, proved such a success.
While the US has led more recent responses to threats to merchant traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea, it continues to look to European and other allies for force contributions and operational planning and command expertise.
Given the UK and Europe would be significantly impacted by any disruption to maritime trade in East Asia, that same logic might apply to a crisis spurred by a quarantine or embargo of Taiwan.
Of course, the tyranny of distance and fears over the more proximate Russia might see European capitals initially reluctant to lean into this proposition. For many, protecting their trading relationships with China would also be a factor.
Over a prolonged crisis, however—which any embargo or quarantine of Taiwan would likely be—European policymakers would likely face increasing pressures to respond where their national shipping interests are being impacted.
An extended embargo or quarantine would also pose Washington with a dilemma of its own—does it intervene immediately or posture for a potential escalation to wider conflict? In that context, and given it would be Europe’s maritime interests as well as America’s that are impacted, the US could well look to Europe for contributions to a maritime security response.
What the UK and Europe might send, however, will depend on the state of affairs closer to home. While many might assume little could be spared, it is of note that despite the war in Ukraine, the threat to NATO and crises in the Middle East, European countries continue to send frigates, destroyers, and even carrier strike groups to the Indo-Pacific, suggesting some might have the capacity to deploy some ships in a crisis.
European contributions might also include more novel options. Several European countries maintain Ocean Patrol Vessels in the Indo-Pacific, for example, which could be used in any response to CCG operations—effectively playing China at its own “gray zone” game by pairing similar vessels against those being used against Taiwan.
Furthermore, given UK and European expertise in the C2 of maritime security operations of this type, that could be an important additional contribution to any operation.
Peter Olive (PeterOlive@CommandView.co.uk) is a Pacific Forum senior adjunct fellow and former Royal Navy officer and senior defense leader. Peter is also a RUSI fellow and senior advisor at Herminius Strategic Intelligence.
