Jose M. Macias III and Benjamin Jensen
The IssueUnder the guise of fishing, Beijing is using dual-use and unmarked vessels to surveil, harass, and assert presence around Taiwan. Analysis of AIS tracks, People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) drill zones, and Global Fishing Watch data narrowed a subset of 12,000 vessels traveling near Taiwan on days likely to coincide with maritime drills down to 315 vessels that were both flying the Chinese flag and identified as fishing vessels. The classification framework developed at the Futures Lab flagged 128 likely gray zone actors. Institutionalizing this framework inside a Coalition Joint-Maritime Anomaly Cell (CJ-MAC) would automate anomaly detection and scale coverage across the Taiwan Strait and Indo-Pacific. CJ-MAC should be leveraged to fuse intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), publish suspect-vessel alerts, and cue real-time monitoring and patrols.
Many suspect vessels manipulate identity and visibility—going dark, switching names, or masking movements—behavior consistent with covert tasking. Publishing and punishing a rolling blacklist of repeat offenders through sanctions on owners, insurers, and operators would raise costs and shrink deniability. To support this effort, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies should map corporate ownership networks tied to suspicious vessels—identifying shell companies and economic exposure in allied jurisdictions.
Gray zone tactics exploit ambiguity, with mixed fleets and massive automatic identification system (AIS) volumes making it hard to separate commerce from covert operations. A Taiwan Transparency Dashboard and an annual Gray Zone Maritime Threat Estimate would give policymakers and partners a clear, shared operating picture.
Introduction
Gray zone activity is a constant in modern great power competition. Authoritarian states use indirect ways and means that fall beneath the threshold of armed force to set conditions for both future military operations and long-term coercive campaigns. This approach, termed “advancing without attacking,” is a central feature of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pressures Taiwan and other states.1 China has waged disinformation campaigns around Taiwanese elections, stolen intellectual property to accelerate its technological rise, and seized disputed border territory by quietly building villages, all while avoiding direct military confrontation.2 These operations often rely on ambiguity, plausible deniability, and the strategic use of nonmilitary assets.3
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