The United States is entering an era of great-power competition with China and faces an immediate challenge: the gray zone, a space between peace and war in which China operates to achieve its political objectives. This report summarizes the tactics and approaches taken by several countries in Southeast and East Asia — Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam — in response to China's coercive actions in the gray zone.

How the United States Can Support Allied and Partner Efforts to Counter China in the Gray Zone

Affirmative Engagement

Tyler Liggett, Todd C. Helmus, Krista Romita Grocholski

ResearchPublished Nov 20, 2024

The United States is entering a new era of great-power competition with China. In this era of competition, the United States is working to acquire the high-end weaponry that is necessary to deter China from pursuing kinetic conflict. However, the U.S. Department of Defense faces an immediate challenge: the gray zone, a space between peace and war in which China operates to achieve its political objectives. Using brute force tactics, such as island building, ship ramming, and water cannons, China seeks to control the South China Sea and East China Sea to undermine regional political autonomy and U.S. security commitments.

This report aims to provide U.S. decisionmakers and a general audience with an understanding of the types of actions that countries in the region are taking to counter China's gray-zone efforts, the associated challenges, and their limitations. The countries of Southeast and East Asia — particularly Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam — are the primary targets of China's gray-zone actions; therefore, these countries will be the key drivers in executing a broader counter-China gray-zone strategy. In this report, the authors intend to provide U.S. decisionmakers with the necessary background information to synchronize U.S. responses in support of enabling regional responses.

Key Findings

  • Regional responses to China's gray-zone operations are not homogenous and vary from country to country in terms of their levels of assertiveness, depths of intensity, and types of employed tactics.
  • Regional countries have adopted several responses to China's gray-zone coercion, including use-of-force, multilateral, legal, economic, media, diplomatic, and civil initiatives.
  • China's oversized ability to exercise influence over the region, particularly in the economic realm and via escalation dominance, limits states' willingness to take forceful measures, such as detaining Chinese citizens or using military force.
  • The Philippines is one of the most determined states in combating China in the gray zone under its approach of assertive transparency that deliberately seeks out and exposes China's coercive actions.
  • From 2014 to 2019, Indonesia adopted an assertive strategy of capturing and sinking illegal fishing vessels, even firing at Chinese fishing crew. However, potentially because of fear of losing lucrative Chinese investments, Indonesia has since adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Recommendations

  • The United States should build regional countries' will to respond to and endure China's gray-zone actions by reaffirming U.S. security commitments to the region and supporting and optimizing transparency initiatives that publicize malign Chinese actions in the South China Sea.
  • The United States should increase regional countries' resilience and flexibility to resist and respond to China's coercive actions by providing and encouraging alternative economic investments in the region and encourage the resolution of regional territorial disputes.
  • The United States should increase regional countries' capacity to deter and defeat China in the gray zone by continuing to build regional military and coast guard capacities, reconsidering previous assumptions that more-direct confrontation of hostile Chinese actions in the South China Sea will lead to military escalation, and identifying ways to disincentivize People's Armed Police Maritime Militia's and Chinese fishing fleets' activities.

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Liggett, Tyler, Todd C. Helmus, and Krista Romita Grocholski, How the United States Can Support Allied and Partner Efforts to Counter China in the Gray Zone: Affirmative Engagement, RAND Corporation, RR-A2954-2, 2024. As of April 30, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2954-2.html

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Liggett, Tyler, Todd C. Helmus, and Krista Romita Grocholski, How the United States Can Support Allied and Partner Efforts to Counter China in the Gray Zone: Affirmative Engagement. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2954-2.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Joint Staff J-7 and J-8 and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).

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