July 10, 2025

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Beijing’s Grey Zone Tactics Present a Growing Threat to Taiwan

AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying

On July 9, Taiwan launched its annual military exercises simulating a blockade and armed invasion of the island by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Unique to this year’s “Han Guang” exercises is the 10-day length of the exercises, new weaponry deployed, and the inclusion of six types of “grey zone” tactics used by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that could be utilized prior to and during a military invasion. Grey zone activities are provocations or aggressions that stop short of the threshold of conventional war, such as legal warfare, cognitive warfare (including disinformation campaigns), attrition, coercion, containment, sabotage, and provocation. In recent years, the PRC has increased its grey zone activities targeting Taiwan, such as launching disinformation campaigns, severing underseas cables around the island, and utilizing the China Coast Guard (CCG) for intrusions, harassment, and lawfare aimed at asserting Beijing’s jurisdiction in the Taiwan Strait and undermining Taiwan’s sovereignty.

PRC grey zone tactics have increased in scope, prevalence, and have become more efficient at targeting specific actors, institutions, or vulnerabilities in the past decade. Since 2018, the PLA has conducted at least a dozen military drills and exercises in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan, increasing in scale and frequency year-over-year, including encircling Taiwan and simulating a blockade. PLA aircraft also frequently conduct incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), including crossing the median line in the Strait, with 2024 recording a record number of incursions into the ADIZ totaling more than 3,000. Taiwan has accused the PRC of sabotaging three undersea cables since 2023, which mimic similar incidents worldwide, including one in the Baltic Sea that involved a Chinese-flagged vessel. The increase in PRC disinformation campaigns targeting both the traditional media landscape in Taiwan and Taiwanese social media users present a growing concern. A report by Taiwan’s National Security Bureau stated that the quantity of false or biased information distributed by the PRC increased by 60 percent in 2024, including the use of AI-generated videos. Economic coercion, political and diplomatic interference, and lawfare have also been deployed against Taiwan as part of grey zone activities. The PRC has imposed import restrictions on Taiwanese goods, recruited agents to form insurrection groups, and published judicial guidelines related to its 2005 Anti-Secession Law that criminalizes secession by Taiwanese “separatists,” punishable under PRC law (including in absentia), which could broaden the scope for transnational repression. Since last year, the Chinese Coast Guard has stepped up its patrols in Taiwan-administered waters, aiming to assert law enforcement jurisdiction in waters around Taiwan, especially its outlying islands.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims that Taiwan is part of its territory, and President Xi Jinping has vowed that “national reunification” is “inevitable.” While Xi has repeatedly emphasized the need for “peaceful reunification,” he has also stated that the CCP “make[s] no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve[s] the option of taking all necessary means.” While grey zone tactics in and of themselves likely will not produce Beijing’s stated goals, they can serve to lay the groundwork for favorable conditions if the CCP opts for a military invasion. Grey zone tactics are notoriously harder to respond to as they often exploit a system’s vulnerability, feature unconventional tactics, and include elements of ambiguity and deniability.  Individually, each grey zone activity may not directly threaten a country’s sovereignty, but collectively, they can incur significant harm by undermining the target state’s readiness and ability to effectively respond. This is a reality that Taiwan is acutely aware of, given its inclusion of combatting PRC grey zone activities during the “Han Guang” exercises. In response to this year’s exercises, the PRC’s Ministry for National Defense reiterated that nothing will prevent their inevitable “reunification.” The PLA deployed planes and ships on July 8 for what Taiwan labeled “harassment operations around Taiwan’s air and sea domains.” On July 9, the PRC imposed export controls on eight companies with Taiwanese military ties.

While Taiwan appears to be the most prominent target of PRC grey zone activities, Beijing has also deployed such tactics across East and Southeast Asia, including targeting the Philippines and Japan. Simultaneously, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine highlighted the urgency to effectively respond to similar tactics and instances of Russian hybrid warfare, including on European soil. Last week, the European Union’s (EU) envoy in Taiwan said that Taiwan and Europe are natural partners in learning from one another and cooperating against hybrid threats — noting that there are common threat vectors, "[e]specially for maritime infrastructure and in particular for subsea cables,” as well as in the realms of disinformation and drones. As democracies continue to struggle with how to effectively respond to or deter these forms of aggression, states like Russia and China are likely to continue exploiting existing vulnerabilities, seeking to degrade adversaries but avoid direct military confrontation.