A Potential Conflict over Taiwan: A View from India

China’s August 2022 military exercises around Taiwan in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island set off concerns about another potential regional conflagration following on the heels of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the exercises have ceased, they were another opportunity for Beijing to underline its willingness to use force to take over Taiwan. This ever-present Chinese threat to regional peace and security throws up several questions for key players in the Indo-Pacific about how they might respond. Given Indian interests in the region—a substantial flow of its trade runs though the South China Sea—its own ongoing boundary dispute with China, as well as its status as a key member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, how does India view a potential Taiwan contingency? This paper attempts to answer this question by examining two aspects of the issue. One, it looks at the likelihood of a Taiwan conflict from India’s perspective, including examining whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine has influenced New Delhi’s calculus on its probability. It puts forth a couple of reasons why the hitherto predominant Indian view of the low likelihood of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan might be changing. Two, it explores India’s interests and responses in the case of a conflict through the prism of India’s relations with Taiwan, with China, and with the United States. This section also lays out what India’s expectations of the US would be in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The article concludes by stating that a military role for India looks infeasible, but outlines what some plausible means of Indian involvement in the case of a conflict might be.