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8 April 2022

A New Framework for Understanding and Countering China's Gray Zone Tactics

Bonny Lin, Cristina L. Garafola, Bruce McClintock, et al.

Gray zone tactics—coercive actions that are shy of armed conflict but beyond normal diplomatic, economic, and other activities—are widely recognized as playing an increasingly important role in China's efforts to advance its domestic, economic, foreign policy, and security objectives, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. But there is little consensus to date on which tactics pose the greatest challenges to the United States and its allies and partners in the region.

RAND Project Air Force researchers developed a framework to help U.S. policymakers categorize China's use of gray zone tactics and identify the most-problematic People's Republic of China (PRC) tactics that the United States could prioritize countering. Studies of China's gray zone tactics typically have focused on specific countries, domains (e.g., maritime), or incidents. RAND analyzed trends and patterns in China's gray zone behavior by examining the country's use of different types of gray zone tactics over time against five key U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific: Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, India, and the Philippines.

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