![bringing the coastal zone into finer focus guild bringing the coastal zone into finer focus guild](https://www.foodprocessing-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/01/fish.jpg)
China, for example, has implemented a well orchestrated campaign approved and controlled by the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Japan’s worry is that if Chinese air activities go unchallenged, other countries may gradually come to accept China’s claims over Japan’s. In general, grey zone activities involve purposefully pursuing political objectives through carefully designed operations moving cautiously towards goals rather than seeking decisive results quickly acting to remain below key escalatory thresholds so as to avoid war and using all instruments of national power, particularly non-military and non-kinetic tools, such as cyber warfare. Whether in the South China Sea, the East China Sea or on its border with India, China has employed innovative and imaginative grey zone tactics in its quest for a persistent strategic advantage over others. However, in a new research paper for the Air and Space Power Centre, I do just that, focusing on the largest country undertaking grey zone actions: China.
![bringing the coastal zone into finer focus guild bringing the coastal zone into finer focus guild](https://caymaneco.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Flooding-in-Hagen-Germany-July-2021_Floodlist.198191441_std.jpg)
The Update’s intent is high-level and deliberately does not discuss grey zones in detail. The document directed Defence to be better prepared to respond to these activities today and into the future.
#BRINGING THE COASTAL ZONE INTO FINER FOCUS GUILD UPDATE#
Worryingly, the Update declared “grey zone activities directly or indirectly targeting Australian interests are occurring now”. It had a particularly strong focus on grey zone activities, seen as increasingly troubling the Indo-Pacific and involving “military and non-military forms of assertiveness and coercion aimed at achieving strategic goals without provoking conflict”. Australia’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update was, by the standards of such publications, a hard-hitting document.