Pacific Forum published this article at its original publication. It is republished with authority.
A People’s Liberation Army reconnaissance plane (X-9 ) from the People’s Liberation Army intruded into Japanese airspace east of the Danjo Islands in the East China Sea for the first time on August 26, 2024.
The , Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China ( Taiwan )  , and the , Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan , both protested and condemned the act, criticizing Beijing for violating the sovereignty of other nations and destabilizing regional peace.
This latest incursion reflected broader People’s Republic of China ( PRC )  , gray zone tactics, a non-peaceful means it uses to assert sovereignty over Taiwan unilaterally.
Gray zone tactics  , include behavior-changing do and modifying the balance between hostile parties. One might employ non-kinetic strategies to encourage the other to adhere to perceived objectives and contest safety standards.
Intensifying PRC defense attacks
In , 2016, during Xi Jinping’s second word, the PRC escalated its use of grey zone strategies to pressure Taiwan and neighboring nations. These tactics span the platform known as , MIDFIELD,  , which encompasses defense, technical, political, economic, intelligence, financial, law, and development strategies.
For do violates the , rules-based sea order , across the Taiwan Strait and threatens the security , balance , in the Indo-Pacific. Since , September 2020, Taiwan ‘s , Ministry of National Defense has carefully tracked and publicized PRC intrusions.
Militarily, the PRC has maintained normal attacks against Chinese water, heat and near-shore territories. The peak PRC incursion occurred on , September 18, 2023, when , 103 , PLA aircraft intruded into the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone ( ADIZ ).
Throughout 2022, the , frequency , and richness of the PRC plane commissioned for invasion have increased, as evidenced by the Chinese government. In 2022, the number of PRC plane incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ increased by , 79 %.
The PLAN invaded Taiwan’s ADIZ with an average daily flow of 19 aircraft and nine PLAN vessels ( including official ships ), according to open-source data released by the official social media account of , MND in August of 2024.
A total of 1, 737 Army airplane intruded into the Taiwan ADIZ in 2022, while , 586 , PLA aircraft entered the Taiwan ADIZ within only August 2024. PRC attacks often cross the median line of the Strait, destabilizing the situation.
On , June 25, 2024,  , Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration , expelled four Taiwanese coast guard arteries intruding into Japanese waters off the , Quemoy Islands. Correspondingly, professionals, including , Jude Blanchette , of the CSIS think tank, are extremely concerned about possible PRC threats against Taiwan in the event of fatalities from such sea incidents.
A motion between the PRC and the Philippines occurred on , June 17, 2024, and almost triggered the , United States–Philippines Security Treaty. The latest sea fight on , August 31 , between the PRC and the Philippines in the , South China Sea , (SCS) highly signals the dangers of intentional invasion and its effects.
Information battle
In addition to naval and aircraft attacks,  , cyberattacks  , and , vote interference , have huge featured as the PRC’s grey zone techniques in the , information site. Such methods target Chinese public view, the center of gravity of cross-strait relationships.
Taiwan Minister of Defense Wellington Koo Li-hsiung, during a live-streaming with Taiwan-based advertising, stated that Taiwan faces over , 5 million cyber-attacks regularly,  , mainly from the PRC.
These selective problems, launched by , PRC state-sponsored stars, have been targeting , important civil infrastructure , and government systems. During the 2024 Taiwanese election season, the PRC-sponsored,  , Fuzhou-based group  , Red Juliett , was reported to have detected , vulnerabilities , in multiple Taiwanese sectors spanning higher education, government, technology and diplomacy.
Correspondingly, the PRC even targets Chinese politics and de facto independence through election meddling. Since , 1996, the PRC has  , routinely , interfered in Chinese votes to prevent , pro-independence events quite as the , Democratic Progressive Party from gaining strength.
Using stars and famous media including , LINE,  , TikTok and Facebook, the PRC invests heavily in , propaganda campaigns , and , media warfare , to affect Chinese public view.
Open-source content ( often baffled by , AI technology such as DeepFake ), opinionated with unification signals, aims to shift public support from “diehard Taiwanese separatists” to the PRC’s favored candidates through videos and text-based messages.
Coupled with cyberattacks against Taiwanese infrastructure, interference in Taiwanese elections aims to incentivize the Taiwanese public and leadership to cater to , Beijing’s narrative , comprehensively.
Cognitive warfare and broader implications
Beijing’s strategic mindset is to win without fighting. Ultimately, the PRC’s priority is to , coerce , Taiwan into peaceful unification with the mainland without direct conflict.
By isolating Taiwan diplomatically via incentivizing states to shift , diplomatic recognition , and , distorting , the , UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, the PRC advocates for the , domestication , of the cross-strait issue as its , internal affair.
Using gray zone tactics, the PRC intends to convince Taiwan of the , power asymmetry , between the two parties and thus coerce Taipei into behaving according to Beijing’s interests, ultimately accepting unification.
These efforts have so far had a limited impact. Taiwan, the newest nation to grant diplomatic recognition to the PRC, is a small piece of Beijing’s diplomatic success. But , public opinion in Taiwan largely favors , maintaining autonomy, reflecting the resilience of Taiwanese democracy against coercion and instilling a sense of hope for the future.
Violations across the military and information domains are just the tip of the iceberg in the PRC’s , cognitive warfare , ( 認知戰 ) against Taiwan.
In general, the PRC is , diplomatically isolating, militarily intimidating, economically containing and informationally manipulating Taiwan. Such coercion and non-peaceful means contradict both legal frameworks governing cross-strait relations and dialogue-based practices, such as the , 1992 Consensus.
Broadly, gray zone tactics also threatened the strategic objectives of the , three Communiqués , between the United States and China, especially the , peaceful resettlement , of the Taiwan issue.
Since 1979, this pillar has been supporting US-China relations. Meanwhile, the PRC consistently protests , unofficial ties between the US and Taiwan that flourish despite Washington’s one-China , policy.
In summary, the PRC tries to achieve its strategic goal by imposing psychological costs on Taiwan and recognizing the necessity of coercion and fear-based control for unification. Members of the , international community , such as the , Republic of Korea,  , Japan and , Australia are voicing diplomatic support for Taiwan with growing consensus.
However, deterring the PRC with , political costs , is insufficient to disincentivize the gray zone violations. Such a dilemma stems from the PRC’s , information manipulation, which manipulates public opinion by applying propaganda, censorship and misinformation strategies.
In short, the PRC’s gray-zone tactics against Taiwan will continue challenging Taiwan’s security and cross-strait peace. This security norm illustrates the possibility of turning into an a , multi-faceted war; therefore, the nature of defending Taiwan’s security necessitates coalition deterrence based on military might, winning the information war, and economic resilience, underscoring the value of collective action.
Credible deterrence demands , assurance , and , deterrence threats, thus, coalition-based strategic signaling should feature countermeasures against the PRC’s divide-and-conquer tactics.
As , Richard Bush , emphasizes, the cross-strait issue stems from , political conflicts , involving the military domain. The feasibility of , strategic ambiguity , could be , challenged , in the cross-strait conflict involving multiple state actors in an interconnected geopolitical era.
The stakes are high:  , Strategic ambiguity , has governed US foreign policy regarding cross-Strait relations for the past 45 years, while Taiwan security is a pacing challenge. This approach has allowed the US to avoid explicitly supporting Taiwan’s independence while maintaining a broad interpretation ( e. g., “one China with different interpretations” ) of the concept of ,” China”  , under the , one-China policy.  , Such a policy has been balancing cross-strait dynamics, which relies on US credibility to prevent either side from modifying the status quo unilaterally.
Thus, to counteract the PRC’s actions against Indo-Pacific state actors and Taiwan, “peace through collective , strength” should feature solutions to the cross-strait security dilemma. Multilateral frameworks, especially AUKUS, can impose perceived war costs against the PRC by sharing , advanced capabilities.  ,
For instance, the strategic position of , Virginia-class submarines , and , quantum technologies , can strengthen Taiwan’s deterrence in the , information , and military domain.
Leveraging such initiatives from like-minded allies can help Taiwan strengthen its overall , intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance advantage to enhance , credible deterrence.
Emerson Tsui ( shx007@ucsd .edu), a Taiwan security specialist with expertise in Chinese language and open-source intelligence, is an alumnus of the Carter Center. He’s also a Young Leader of the Pacific Forum, which originally published this article.