China’s grey zone tactics<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 14 months since Lai’s inauguration have been marked by an increase in Chinese action: numerous large-scale military drills, live-fire exercises and full encirclement of the island by jets and ships.<\/p>\n
Beijing also appears to have been testing new capabilities, with onlookers in China taking videos of what appeared to be a test of a huge amphibious bridging system, a possible path on to Taiwan.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the most noteworthy change has been the marked increase in so-called grey zone incursions, with China encroaching slowly in ways that are hard for Taiwan to respond to.<\/p>\n
On Penghu, these tactics are a daily reality and are impacting lives and livelihoods.<\/p>\n
“In the past, our fishing boats could go directly to mainland China. They’d even go ashore, maybe grab a meal,” explains Yen Te-Fu, who heads up the Penghu Fishermen’s Association.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-penghu_6960787.jpg\")
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\n Penghu’s fishing industry has been impacted by Chinese incursions<\/p>\n
“But fishermen are now too afraid to sail to China. When they fish in our own waters, they constantly see Chinese Coast Guard ships. They’re genuinely scared.”<\/p>\n
He says it’s worse now than ever “because Lai Ching-te’s stance is even clearer”.<\/p>\n
But the use of coastguard vessels to enforce new Chinese-set norms is just one tactic, according to observers.<\/p>\n
![\"Taiwan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-china_6961674.jpg\")
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\n Taiwan’s Coast Guard faces off against Chinese counterparts near the coast of Hualien, east Taiwan, last December<\/p>\n
Research published by the Taiwanese thinktank Research Project on China’s Defence Affairs (RCDA) has recorded new incidents of so-called “three-no” ships crossing the median line.<\/p>\n
These are ships with no name, no registered home port and no registration certificate.<\/p>\n
Thirty ships crossed on the eve of the one-year anniversary of President Lai’s inauguration as an “evidently disguised maritime militia ship”, the RCDA says.<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-china-taiwan_6960798.jpg\")
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While not against maritime law, it is nonetheless a serious accusation.<\/p>\n
“This is nothing but a sheer slander, like a thief shouting ‘catch the thief’,” said Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of national defence, when we put it to him.<\/p>\n
“The relevant actions conducted by the PLA in the Taiwan Strait are necessary measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”<\/p>\n
Transactional Trump ‘constantly changing’<\/strong><\/p>\nConversations about Taiwan’s security have changed since Donald Trump returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
Like most countries, the US does not share formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but it is treaty-bound to supply it with defensive arms, and previous presidents have hinted they would do more if needed.<\/p>\n
But Trump has accused Taiwan of “stealing” the US semiconductor industry, slapped it with a 32% tariff rate and refused to say if he would come to Taiwan’s defence (the tariff has been paused while negotiations continue).<\/p>\n
At a baseball game in the northern city of Taoyuan, people didn’t hold back their views.<\/p>\n
![\"Sky](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-taoyuan_6960774.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
“I think he’s quite crazy,” one woman tells us.<\/p>\n
“He’s constantly changing, there’s no credibility at all,” says a man. “It’s always America First, not caring about any other country.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-china-taiwan_6961653.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n ‘I think he’s quite crazy,’ says a baseball fan on Trump<\/p>\n
Government figures, of course, remain more diplomatic. Lai described the recent tariff negotiation as merely “frictions between friends”, but there is a sense that they know they cannot afford to become alienated from Trump.<\/p>\n
In fact, TSMC, Taiwan’s (and the world’s) leading manufacturer of semiconductor chips, recently announced an additional $100bn investment to build factories in the US.<\/p>\n
Semiconductors are the vital chips needed to power the modern world. Taiwan makes more than 90% of the world’s most advanced ones, and the industry is seen as one of the key reasons the West could come to its support.<\/p>\n
![\"Taiwan's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-trump_6849064.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Trump announced the $100bn deal with TSMC president C.C Wei at the White House<\/p>\n
The US investment was thus criticised by some as a divergence of Taiwan’s greatest defensive asset, a claim the government here bats away.<\/p>\n
“America has also given us a lot,” insists deputy foreign minister Wu. “The American army is working hard to maintain peace in the region.<\/p>\n
“Donald Trump certainly knows that without Taiwanese chips, he cannot make America great again.”<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s ‘wake-up call’ on defence<\/strong><\/p>\nWith more concern over US support for Taiwan, come questions on whether the island could defend itself.<\/p>\n
In recent years, there has been a concerted push from the Taiwanese government to better equip itself with the type of asymmetric weaponry that would be needed to resist China.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the experiences of Ukraine, additional drone manufacturers were given contracts in 2022 to help rapidly scale up production of military-grade drones.<\/p>\n
But data from the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology shows that there is still a long way to go.<\/p>\n
![\"Thunder](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-drone_6960780.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Taiwan is attempting to scale up production of military-grade drones<\/p>\n
Drone production capacity in the year to April 2025 was only around 5% of the 180,000 units Taiwan wants to be producing annually by 2028.<\/p>\n
Thunder Tiger was one of the firms given a contract and its general manager Gene Su says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “wake-up call” for Taiwanese military procurement.<\/p>\n
But more needs to be done, he adds.<\/p>\n
“I believe we are speeding up, but I believe that it’s not yet there,” he says.<\/p>\n
In his dealings with the government, he feels that Trump has changed the equation, with an uptick of defence purchasing.<\/p>\n
![\"Thunder](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-drone_6960782.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a ‘wake-up call’ for Taiwan, says Gene Su<\/p>\n
But even with these renewed efforts, without help from allies, it is still unlikely Taiwan could hold out.<\/p>\n
China has always been resolute and consistent.<\/p>\n
It says the Taiwan question is purely an internal affair of China and that the Lai administration is a separatist force, which is the root cause of disruption to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n
It also says there is “no such thing” as a deputy foreign minister in Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The status quo has kept Taiwan safe for nearly 80 years and the government here insists that maintaining it is their priority, but that has rarely felt so vulnerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a critical port on the Taiwanese island of Penghu, there is a sudden bang of explosions. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-305278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114945079316881291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skynews-taiwan-us-china_6967970.png\")
<\/p>\n