China's Coast Guard is increasingly being used as part of the country’s grey zone tactics.

 

Japan’s 2025 Defense White Paper published on 15 July underlines the growing aggression and threat from China’s Coast Guard.

In recent years, the vessels of China’s Coast Guard “have become larger and more armed” and their operations “have been expanding”, the paper highlights.

By December 2024, the Coast Guard operated 161 vessels with a displacement of 1,000 tonnes or more, “including two 10,000 tonne class patrol ships, among the world’s largest ones”.

Considering its latest activities, including around Taiwan, the paper suggests that China may be “placing greater importance” on the role of the Coast Guard in supporting China’s grey zone tactics.

China deploys a range of tactics under what is commonly referred to as ‘grey zone’ warfare – activities that sit beneath the threshold of war. These include deploying fishing vessels to assert control over contested areas, interfering with critical undersea infrastructure, and conducting disinformation campaigns.  

Dangerous times

Aside from China, the paper reiterates the threat posted by North Korea and Russia, first highlighted in the 2022 Defense White Paper.

Noting one specific incident, the paper reveals that in September last year a Russian Ilyushin Il-38 maritime patrol aircraft intruded three times into Japanese airspace north of Rebun Island, Hokkaido.

In total, Japanese aircraft were scrambled 704 times last year in response to airspace incursions. While 464 of these were from Chinese aircraft, 237 were Russian, the paper details.

While this remains relatively high, it aligns with recent annual averages in Japan, which typically intercept 700 aircraft every year.

North Korea also poses “an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan’s security than ever before”, the paper acknowledged.

Together, these actors present a significant challenge to Japan, which the paper argues could lead to a similar scale of war to that of Ukraine. This reiterates the Japanese Prime Minister’s speech during DSEI Japan in May when he said that “today’s Ukraine could be East-Asia tomorrow”.

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Olivia Savage, Editor in Chief, Clarion Defence & Security