Tag Archive for: grayzone

[Asia’s Next Page] Japan’s Planning on Taiwan: Mitigating Beijing’s Gray-Zone Warfare


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China under Xi Jinping has been through rapid economic growth, giving it increased leverage to engage more assertively in questions of its territorial and maritime claims. While a multitude of diplomatic, military and strategic tools have been employed in pursuit of its goals lately, none has been as consistent as the gray-zone tactics it has resorted to over the last decade. 

By using military and non-military means of coercion, Beijing has systematically established its presence as a strategic challenge to the status quo and as a threat to multiple actors within the realm of international security. Motivated by its historical claims in regard to the South and East China Sea (ECS) and its “One China” policy, China’s unrelenting use of gray-zone warfare tactics against Taiwan have raised alarm. 

Heavily compromised cross-strait relations pose a threat to Japan, whose national security is intrinsically linked with that of Taiwan. As the Taiwan crisis rapidly escalates, how can Japan mitigate Beijing’s gray-zone tactics and ensure its own national security?

Converging Defense Postures

Referring to threats that do not amount to an armed attack, Japan’s 2021 Defense White Paper significantly emphasizes the importance of mitigating gray-zone actions. 

Tokyo essentially defines a gray-zone situation as one wherein a country confronts another over territorial, sovereign, maritime interests or other economic interests by forcefully demonstrating its presence. Identified as neither peacetime nor contingency situations, Japan recognizes the activity as “part of inter-state competition,” harboring “the risk of rapidly developing into graver situations without showing clear intentions.” Accordingly, Japan’s white paper calls for increased concern over the disputed Senkaku Islands (referred to as Diaoyu by China), considering China’s growing gray-zone activity to strategically assert its presence in the region. 

China’s increasingly threatening approach towards Taiwan has resulted in the need for a rigorously strengthened defense posture for the latter. The second Taiwan Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR 2021) under President Tsai…

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Measures against China’s ‘gray-zone’ tactics detailed


  • By Wu Su-wei and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Ministry of National Defense has elaborated on the military’s countermeasures against China’s “gray-zone conflict” tactics in a comprehensive review of Taiwan’s defense strategy.

The ministry’s 2021 Quadrennial Defense Review, which was on Thursday delivered to the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee for review, highlights the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) increasing use of gray-zone conflict methods, including cognitive warfare, disinformation, and air and sea patrols.

The methods are employed by the PLA to exhaust Taiwan’s armed forces and morale, the ministry said.

Photo provided by the Coast Guard Administration via CNA

The PLA’s cognitive warfare strategy is based on the “three forms of warfare” concept, which refers to public opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare, which are conducted to create internal contradictions in Taiwan, the ministry said.

The ministry’s answer to cognitive warfare is the creation of rapid response mechanisms that use technology to counter disinformation, provide factual rebuttals across multiple media, stop public panic, and create counter-narratives with international partners, it said.

China has reorganized its forces to augment its cyberwarfare capabilities, and PLA cyberunits are deployed for intelligence gathering and for stealing military, industrial and commercial secrets, it said.

Another part of the PLA’s effort is directed toward identifying gaps in Taiwan’s cyberinfrastructure to exploit them, including attacking these targets during a war to paralyze the nation’s government, security forces and military, the ministry said.

The armed forces are to stop these threats by implementing information security mechanisms, increasing defensive capabilities and strengthening collaboration with cybersecurity agencies, it said.

The…

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