China's growing intervention in the Indo-Pacific is reshaping the regional order through 'Grey Zone Tactics': a blend of geopolitical, economic, military, cyber, and information operations that stop just short of open military provocation. Designed to deter external pressure while consolidating China's grip on the region, these manoeuvres increasingly threaten the United States and its allies, yet rarely catch the public eye.
In this context, as the South China Sea remains a hotbed of Chinese grey zone activities, the Philippines, with overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, has made efforts to provide limited insights into the ‘Grey Zone’ by making visual media available for public access, inviting Chinese contempt. It is significant to have a more concerted academic discourse in this direction as the regional security architecture is being engendered by Beijing’s slowly intensifying grip on the region. China’s attempt to proliferate the geopolitical load on its rivals in the region sits in stark juxtaposition with its active adoption of ‘Grey Zone’ tactics to avert direct international pressure.
Shying away from overt military confrontation, China is providing no concrete ground for its rival nations to hurl accusations revolving around her expansionist tendencies backed by her military prowess.
Michael Mazarr’s landmark piece, published in 2015, further provides credibility to the scholarly opinion that Grey Zone operations are deterrent in nature. According to David Kilcullen, the theoretical foundations of ‘Grey Zone conflict’ are rooted in the Clausewitzian paradigms of war as a continuum, wherein subversive influence acts as an ingenious diplomatic tactic operating immediately below the threshold of direct armed involvement. Drawing inspiration from Sun Tzu’s dictum of winning without fighting, Beijing’s strategic calculus conceives an effective conglomeration of military, paramilitary & civilian instrumentalities.
In this light, China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) serves dual objectives, facilitating geopolitical intrusions under the guise of economic cooperation, thereby gradually relegating the subordinate economies to an acute debt trap dilemma.
Maritime Gray-Zone Operations:
The People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) and the China Coast Guard (CCG) primarily carry out China's maritime grey zone operations in an intentionally non-military but coercive capacity. Incrementally extending de facto control over contested waters without provoking a direct military response, these organisations employ salami-slicing techniques.
These are asymmetric, incremental, and multi-layered in approach, involving paramilitary naval assets, legal warfare, claims of artificial sovereignty, and psychological intimidation strategies to achieve territorial revisionism under the guise of civilian or law enforcement activity. The PAFMM, the CCG, and state-supported fishing fleets are all grey-zone enforcers that operate below the level of armed conflict and gradually chip away at rival maritime claims.
Since these methods often fall beyond the confines of conventional legal and military systems, the uncertainty built into them complicates the reaction of adjacent governments and the international community. Andrew Erickson and Ryan Martinson highlight how the Maritime Militia of China serves as a key component of this plan, acting as a front of civilian activity but actually run by the Chinese government. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the international community's use of norms-based criteria in guaranteeing maritime security has been ineffective in dealing with China's grey zone activities, therefore demanding reevaluation of multilateral policies in addressing such problems.
At the core of grey zone activities in the maritime domain of China are information and psychological operations. Using sophisticated propaganda methods, Beijing has tried to sway both domestic and global opinion of its maritime projects, which it portrays as peaceful and justified. For instance, China has justified their island-building and military operations in the South China Sea on humanitarian and environmental grounds, including scientific research and disaster relief.
Dragon’s Strategy in The Indian Ocean
The Chinese strategy in the Indian Ocean is marked by stark uniqueness. On the contrary of being portrayed as a single uniform region, it has been largely classified into two major oceanic areas owing to its enormity, namely: ‘The Indian Ocean’ region (IOR) & ‘The Western Pacific’ region.
In more recent times, the Western Pacific has witnessed an aggressive China instigating disproportionate territorial claims, underpinned by escalating military operations. Even in the grey zone areas, China’s territorial claims beyond its 200 nautical mile-long Exclusive Economic Zone have drawn international condemnation for its intensifying hostilities, reaffirmed by its construction of military facilities on some illegally captured islands in the Western Pacific, constantly watched over by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Warships.
It is noteworthy to mention that time and again, several countries like Vietnam, the Philippines & Indonesia have voiced their concerns about China’s expansionist tendencies on various international platforms, alleging that the nation infringes on their individual exclusive economic zones.
On a different note, China’s escalating incursion in the Indian Ocean Region through its research vessels & fisheries has necessitated a meticulous interrogation through a naval geo-strategic lens, raising concerns for India. Experts have often speculated that the PLAN may use these research vessels as their ‘eyes’ & ‘ears’ in the region. Additionally, the Chinese fishing boats, which are in alarmingly large numbers in the IOR, are increasingly being seen as PLAN auxiliary naval forces constituting an integral component of Beijing’s maritime militia apparatus and the core of China’s ‘Grey Zone’ tactics through its engagement of non-military actors.
Regardless of Beijing's categorical assertion that its oceanographic research activities are based on purely scientific motives, the widespread Indian Ocean littoral scepticism concerning the secretive intelligence-gathering motives of such vessels is indicative of the larger geo-strategic rivalry playing itself out in the region. Empirical reconnaissance studies highlight that these ships systematically operate close to, or inside, the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of coastal nations, quietly diminishing their jurisdictional inviolability while providing China with an unparalleled reservoir of hydrographic information important for future naval campaigns.
How Should India Tackle This?
India can no longer overlook the impending possibility of a covert maritime blockade or other form of geo-strategic subversion at China’s end. China’s strategic presence in the Gwadar Port in Pakistan provides it with a firm grip over the trade flow happening through the Strait of Hormuz owing to its proximity. To intensify the already mounting pressure on India, China aims to complement its overt strategic manoeuvres with its ‘Grey Zone’ tactics.
India launched its ocean policy, SAGAR, in 2015, but fleet decisions remain stuck in internal resource battles rather than being driven by the actual threats India faces at sea.
Additionally, bolstering India’s maritime presence near the Strait of Malacca (often dubbed the ‘Malacca Choke Point’) is the need of the hour. Nevertheless, if China's moves are seen as an alignment with the ports that it is acquiring in the Indian Ocean, they have far-reaching implications in the long run. India needs to focus on creating a long-term approach to deal with this challenge.
One of the solutions is to enhance maritime awareness with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) countries. India needs to utilise its vast information network, which is spread across the Indian Ocean and incorporates Fusion Centre and space-based maritime surveillance inputs, to track any illicit activities of Chinese vessels. India unequivocally derives significant advantages from its position in the Indian Ocean, but unless these are underpinned by a well-thought-out and properly funded strategy, India will fall behind in making sure the future of the area is predicated on its choices.
About the Author(s):
This article has been written by the China Observatory, the China-centric research group at the Indian Foreign Policy Project (IFPP).