Analysis: China Takes Opportunity To Step Up Gray Zone Warfare Around Kinmen
Tensions between Taiwan and China sparked by an incident near the Kinmen Islands has led to more Chinese coast guard vessels in the region. The concern is that their presence could become a new normal.
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00:00 Is this situation in Jinmen with the increased presence of Chinese Coast Guard ships, is this situation going to escalate?
00:06 Well, I mean, I think what you're already seeing is that it is escalating now, but that is pretty typical of how China conducts
00:16 maritime gray zone operations is it seeks
00:19 opportunities to escalate
00:22 Believing that it has a greater appetite for escalation than its opponent
00:27 So we've seen this time and again in the South China Sea and in other locations
00:32 so in this case you had a
00:34 small boat illegally in Jinmen's waters and
00:39 the
00:41 During you know again
00:43 Unregistered no certificate clearly doing illegal activity possibly smuggling
00:49 and when the
00:52 Taiwan Coast Guard gives chase the boat capsizes and two
00:56 people die and
00:58 China has seized on this as an opportunity to increase its patrol
01:02 so this shows us how China uses pretext as a
01:07 method for
01:09 advancing its strategic
01:11 objectives
01:13 Looking at the fact that two people died is China justified in any way for increasing its presence around Jinmen
01:21 Well, of course, it's justified entirely in its own in its own framework since it believes that all of Taiwan belongs to China
01:28 So almost anything that it does it's justified right? So it it doesn't have to justify itself to itself
01:35 What it has to do is try to somehow get
01:38 Taiwan and the rest of the international community to sort of look away or not pay too much attention
01:44 Because well, you know, it's understandable
01:48 But it's really not understandable if you actually take it apart and consider each thing in its own terms
01:53 The boat itself was almost certainly engaged in illegal activities, right just the characteristics of the boat
01:59 It seems unlikely that those activities were
02:03 Legitimate fishing if it was fishing at all
02:06 Looks more like a smuggling operation frankly
02:09 And then the response is over the top
02:13 It's sort of almost ridiculously over the top, you know to some suddenly now increase your your maritime patrolling within
02:21 You know Jinmen's waters is is clearly just exploiting the situation to advance China's goals
02:27 As we're seeing more and more Chinese Coast Guard ships patrol these waters. Is this a sign of a new normal?
02:34 Well, they've practically announced it, right?
02:36 So the Global Times just came out with an article that said that we were now going to normalize these activities
02:42 And so they've told you already that that's their entire intent is to give you a new normal
02:47 and again
02:48 this this meets entirely with this pattern that we've seen from China over the years of using the pretext of some
02:55 Event it could be a tragedy
02:57 it could be an incident of some sort and then to use that as the
03:02 pretext by which it then takes that next step and then
03:07 Settles everybody in at that next new normal so that then there can be the in the future another new normal
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