DEFENSE/Taiwan should step up transparency amid Chinese 'gray zone' tactics: Expert

Taipei, Aug. 8 (CNA) Taiwan should step up efforts to boost transparency about China's "gray zone" activities to drum up international support and pressure Beijing into not escalating tensions, a maritime transparency project director at Stanford University said Thursday.

To engage the public at home and the international community, the Taiwanese government should release footage and images of China's "gray zone" maneuvers around Taiwan, including standoffs between Taiwanese and Chinese coast guard ships around the Kinmen Islands, Ray Powell, director of Sealight at Stanford's Gordian Knot Center, told a press event held by Forward Alliance in Taipei.

Gray zone activities refer to actions that fall between traditional notions of war and peace. These activities typically involve ambiguous or nontraditional methods that aim to achieve strategic objectives without overtly crossing the threshold into open conflict.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry currently relies mostly on flight maps and press releases of Chinese warplane incursions into its air defense identification zone, however, to get the public and lawmakers on board with projects and items the country is funding with defense spending, Taiwan needs to "show the public what these things look like," he said.

Using China's gray zone maneuvers against the Philippines in the South China Sea as an example, he said that after the Philippine government around February 2023 started to task its coast guard vessels with capturing videos and pictures of blocking and swarming maneuvers employed by the Chinese coast guard against Philippine vessels.

Back then, China had tried to harass Philippine vessels on resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal, Powell said.

Manila's response to the Chinese gray zone activities, which garnered international support for the Philippines, influenced the United State's decision in late July to provide the Philippines with US$500 million to shore up its defense amid ongoing friction with China in the South China Sea, Powell argued.

Over the past 18 months, the international media reported extensively on tensions in the contested waters, garnering wide attention of the international community, which was helped by a keynote speech by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the Shangri-la Dialogue in May, he said.

Manila's tactic was accompanied by a robust embedded reporters' program, which spotlighted the issue locally after six years of opacity surrounding such incidents under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and also in the international community, Powell said.

Although Beijing initially responded by stepping up its "patrols" near the Second Thomas Shoal, Manila's strategy prompted the two countries to each read out its version of an "agreement" on how each side would approach resupply missions undertaken by the Philippines, which went uncontested by China, he said.

"People need to see how Chinese ships and Chinese aircraft are maneuvering in an unsafe manner. Words are important, but images are much more effective," Forward Alliance Director Enoch Wu (吳怡農) said.

"People need to see how Chinese coast guards are forcibly boarding sovereign countries' civilian vessels. Our public needs to see that and the world needs to see that," he said.