Firing water cannons, installing naval barricades, ramming fishing vessels, blinding with laser guns, hit-and-run operations – these are just some of the many tactics utilized by the Chinese government to intimidate us.
Political analysts refer to these as “gray zone tactics” or coercive actions that are shy of armed conflict but go beyond normal diplomatic, economic and defensive acts. They are designed to coerce, disrespect and cause damage to the opposing party without being considered an outright act of war. Gray zone tactics come with the threat of severe retribution should those in the receiving end retaliate. It is the most insidious type of bullying.
Gray zone tactics are among China’s many ways of advancing its hegemonic agenda in the Indo-Pacific. They go hand in hand with other devious practices, not the least of which are the outright disrespect of global treaties, accords, rules and laws; the use of economic aggression; ignoring diplomatic protests; bribing leaders of developing nations and leading them to debt traps.
This is the Chinese way. It is the reason why China is among the two most distrusted countries in the world (along with Russia), according to the Lowly Institute. It is also why it is considered by many governments as a pariah state.
The Philippines has been on the receiving end of China’s gray zone tactics. But we are not alone. China is picking fights with at least a dozen countries simultaneously. Countries that oppose the Chinese Communist Party’s views and its delusional entitlement to global domination stand to suffer the same brunt of bullying. Let me cite a few recent examples.
Despite declaring enduring friendship and unwavering support for President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people, the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources released an updated version of the Chinese map, which includes the Bolshoi Ussuriysky islands as part of Chinese territory. China also claims the important Pacific city of Vladivostok as its own. China presses on with its claims despite the territorial dispute being settled 15 years ago through bilateral agreements. Talk about stabbing a friend in the back.
China betrays and embarrasses India, its close ally in the BRICS coalition. China claims large swaths of Indian territories. Among them are the regions of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh. All these were depicted as part of Chinese domain in its recently published map.
At the onset of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, Chinese organizers disqualified three Indian athletes because they hail from Arunachal Pradesh. To this, India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a strongly worded protest – a protest that fell on deaf ears. China’s deliberate humiliation of Indian athletes goes against the Asiad’s spirit of friendship and goodwill.
Despite illegally obtaining billions of dollars worth of technologies from American companies, China recently banned the export of rare earth materials such as Gallium and Germanium to the US, a move meant to cripple the American semiconductor sector.
For demanding an inquiry on the origins of the Wuhan/COVID virus, China slapped Australia with trade sanctions for beef, barley, cotton, lamb, timber, wine and coal, collectively worth $20 billion. The sanctions have been in force for three years, with only the sanction on barley lifted.
Outside picking fights with counties, China continues to claim sovereign territories of its neighbors, all of whom it bullies with gray zone tactics.
China lays claim to South Korea’s Socotra rock, which is part of South Korea’s EEZ. It also claims ownership of Japan’s Senkaku Islands. In Nepal, China encroached and occupied 36 hectares of land inside Nepal’s borders. In Bhutan, China claims ownership of the Doklam territory whose border traverses the mountains of Gamochen, Batangla, Sinchela, all the way down to Amo Chu.
As for Taiwan, China wants all of it, claiming that the island republic is a rebel province of the mainland.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei all lay claim to part of the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea. But China wants it all to itself. Not only has it illegally built artificial islands and militarized the area, it has also resorted to unrelenting bullying tactics to intimidate the claimants.
In 2020, a Chinese naval militia rammed a Vietnamese fishing vessel near the Parcel Islands. In Indonesia, Chinese fishing vessels, backed by a naval militia, have incurred on Indonesia’s Natuna islands since 2019. In 2021, China escalated the encroachment as it spent seven weeks conducting seabed mapping inside Indonesia’s EEZ without permission. In December 2022, a Reuters report suggested that China crossed Indonesia’s “red line” by demanding that Indonesia stop drilling in its own EEZ.
For its aggressive behavior, China has become the common enemy of many nations. It counts very few as its allies, among them are North Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and few other developing countries. But it is only a matter of time before these countries fall into a debt trap or are stabbed in the back in the same way close friend Russia was.
As for China’s new map, it was firmly rejected by multiple nations and widely characterized as an act of belligerence. Its failure to be recognized renders it illegitimate.
China is slowly but surely isolating itself and it is all upon the command of President Xi Jinping himself. Xi governs with a heavy hand. He imposes his will on other nations through gray zone tactics. He ignores the global order and the rule of law. He acts not for a win-win solution among nations but for China’s solitary gain. All these have translated to distrust – and this is China’s downfall. Widespread distrust for China’s ways, motives and values is precisely why Xi’s dream of displacing the US as the next global superpower is met with stout resistance.
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Email: andrew_rs6@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @aj_masigan