Perry World House Report Responses Against China's Coercion in the Indo-Pacific: Developing a Toolkit from the Philippines and Taiwan

Responses Against China's Coercion in the Indo-Pacific report cover

 

How does a government respond to a threat or coercion by a larger and better-resourced military? That is a question faced by countries across the Indo-Pacific when it comes to actions conducted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan and the Philippines have experienced similar, yet unique, forms of PRC coercion that have resulted in both capitals developing analogous responses that fall within an analytical spectrum. This report focuses on how these two Indo-Pacific countries responded to actions conducted by the military apparatus of the PRC since 2022.

This report, co-authored by Perry World House Senior Program Manager Thomas J. Shattuck and Perry World House Visiting Scholar Robin Michael U. Garcia, considers the lessons from these two countries that may help to inform how other countries may respons to their own powerful neighbors.

Report:

Read the report here.

About the authors:

Thomas J. Shattuck is a Senior Program Manager at Perry World House. His research focuses on cross-Strait relations, Taiwanese and Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, and the US role in the Indo-Pacific. Shattuck is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute, Non-Resident Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, member of Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen Foreign Policy Initiative, and the Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program, where he participated in the 2022 US-Philippines Next-Generation Leaders in Security Initiative. 
 
Robin Michael U. Garcia, a 2023-24 Visiting Scholar at Perry World House, is a political scientist and public affairs adviser. He is the president and chief executive officer of WR Advisory Group, a public affairs firm specializing in data, strategy, and communications. He is also the founder and chairman of its opinion research subsidiary, WR Numero Research. Garcia is an assistant professor in the political economy program at the University of Asia & the Pacific in Manila, Philippines. He serves on a 24-person policy research group convened by Speaker Martin Romualdez at the House of Representatives of the Philippines.