Resisting China’s Gray Zone Military Pressure on Taiwan

Introduction

The People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) has sharply escalated its pressure campaign targeting the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan) in recent years. Beijing appears likely to use Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election in January 2024 as a pretext to apply more pressure on the self-governing island, particularly in the “gray zone” using China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), along with other tools of state power. There is no precise and commonly agreed upon definition of what gray zone activities are and are not. In general, though, the concept refers to actions that fall into the space between, on one side, peace and, on the other, full-scale kinetic war.¹ Gray zone activities are coercive and aggressive but designed to stay below the threshold of triggering major conflict.

China uses gray zone operations as part of a comprehensive strategy to pressure Taiwan that spans the areas of diplomacy, information, economics, and security. This policy brief examines one major component of that campaign: gray zone military and security operations. It starts by detailing the capabilities and tactics China uses to put security pressure on Taiwan. Then, it explains what Beijing seeks to achieve with those actions. The paper concludes with recommendations for how U.S. and Taiwan policymakers can resist and counter China’s gray zone operations.

PRC Gray Zone Military Pressure Targeting Taiwan

China uses a variety of PLA capabilities to exert gray zone pressure on Taiwan. These include crewed air patrols into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Frequent sorties started in 2020 and spiked in August 2022 after the visit of then–U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.² Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said that in September 2023, PLA flights in Taiwan’s vicinity hit a new record of 103 sorties in a single day, 40 of which entered Taiwan’s ADIZ or crossed the median line in the middle of the Taiwan Strait.³

Incursions now feature a wider variety of aircraft flying different routes, including more circumnavigations completely around Taiwan and crossings of the median line. The latter practice has obliterated an operational norm that helped maintain cross-Strait peace and stability for decades.⁴ Moreover, until August 2022, most PLA sorties flew through the southwest corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ closer to Dongsha (Pratas) Island in the South China Sea rather than the more provocative routes near Taiwan’s main island that the PLA often flies now.

Beijing has also upped military pressure using uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). In September 2022, the PLA flew a UAV across the median line for the first time.⁵ The same month, Taiwan’s troops shot down a civilian PRC drone that was flying over Kinmen Island, which is controlled by Taiwan but sits right off China’s coastline.⁶ In April, a PLA combat drone made the first publicly reported flight completely around Taiwan within its ADIZ.⁷ China has also flown surveillance balloons near Taiwan that are similar to the one that flew over the United States in February 2023.⁸

At sea, PLA Navy (PLAN) vessels spend more time closer to Taiwan compared with previous years. PLAN forces contest U.S. support for Taiwan and assert Beijing’s claim that “China has sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait” through deliberately unsafe and unprofessional operations near American and allied military assets.⁹ In June, a PLAN warship cut across the bow and came within 150 yards of the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) while the latter transited the Taiwan Strait along with the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal.¹⁰ Beijing further employs marine survey vessels and hydrographic survey ships to operate near Taiwan.¹¹