The Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong is pictured by Taiwan's Tian Dan guided-missile frigate on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense April 1, 2025
Taipei, April 3 (CNA) China's coast guard has played a more important role during the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) latest round of military exercises surrounding Taiwan this year as Beijing is leveling up its "gray-zone" tactics against the country, scholars have told CNA.
In response to growing Chinese gray-zone activities -- provocative or aggressive actions that fall short of an open conflict -- experts who spoke to CNA called on Taiwan to boost its capabilities in countering such nontraditional security threats.
The PLA's Eastern Theater Command announced the beginning of joint exercises around Taiwan, as "a stern warning" to "Taiwan independence" separatist forces early on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, the command, which has jurisdiction over the East China Sea and Taiwan Strait, further announced that it was conducting a "Strait Thunder-2025A" drill in parts of the Taiwan Strait before announcing the conclusion of two-day joint combat exercises on Wednesday evening hours later.
Asked to comment on the significance of the latest round of Chinese drills, Taipei-based think tank Institute for National Policy Research senior consultant Chen Wen-chia (陳文甲) told CNA that the PLA had deployed its army, navy, air force and rocket force to conduct a round of joint combat exercises to test their collaborative and collective combat capabilities targeting Taiwan.
During the two-day drill, PLA troops also rehearsed precision shootings targeting Taiwan's key infrastructure and a blockade of Taiwanese ports, Chen said.
These activities demonstrated that the Chinese forces' combat preparations against Taiwan are increasingly sophisticated, Chen added.
What is worth noting is that China's coast guard has played a bigger role in this round of PLA military exercises and practiced conducting law enforcement inspections at the Taiwan Strait, Chen said.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a division director at the Taiwan military-funded think tank Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said compared with the PLA's "Joint Sword" military exercises in 2024, China's coast guard simulated inspecting, repelling and intercepting civilian ships in the Taiwan Strait during the most recent drills.
This shows that China's military is considering employing nonmilitary operations to cut off Taiwan's maritime transportation and supply lines to force Taiwan to surrender should a cross-strait war break out, Su said.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight, a Taipei-based think tank, also said the relatively larger number of Chinese coast guard vessels joining the just concluded exercises was part of Beijing's legal warfare targeting Taiwan to prove to the world that it has jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.
Chen urged the Taiwan government to continue enhancing its self-defense and its ability to counter gray-zone warfare, in particular, as China's coast guard is becoming more involved in military exercises.
Su, meanwhile, said that Taiwan's Navy is currently countering Chinese gray-zone harassment with its main combat warships such as destroyers and frigates.
He suggested Taiwan's military build ships similar to the Royal Navy's River-class patrol vessels to monitor Chinese vessels to ensure its main combat warships are preserved for wartime.
Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said Wednesday that it detected nine Chinese coast guard vessels operating near the nation's contiguous zone, an area that is adjacent to territorial sea and airspace and extends a maximum distance of 24 nautical miles from the coast, during the two-day PLA exercises starting Tuesday.
The CGA said it sent 12 patrol vessels to monitor the nine Chinese coast guard vessels.
All freighters and cargo vessels near Taiwan were operating normally despite the presence of Chinese coast guard vessels, it added.