CMSI Conference: China's Gray Zone Maritime Operations

Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses students, staff and faculty at U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

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Event Information

Tuesday, May 02-03, 2017
8:00 a.m.
McCarty Little Hall Auditorium, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI 02841

Director, China Maritime Studies Institute

This event is for spouses, partners, and significant others of military/civilian employees assigned to the Naval War College and Naval Station Newport and its tenant activities, Foundation members, and local-area retirees or active/reserve personnel.

This conference covered China’s major maritime forces beyond core People's Liberation Army navy units, with particular focus on China’s second and third sea forces: the “white-hulled” coast guard and “blue-hulled” maritime militia. 

Increasingly, these paranaval forces, and the “gray zone” in which they typically operate, are where the greatest action is. Beijing works constantly in peacetime -- and possibly in crises short of major combat operations with the United States -- to “win without fighting” and thereby to further its unresolved land feature and maritime claims in the near seas. In short, these are operations conducted to alter the status quo without resorting to war, an approach that some Chinese sources term “war without gun smoke.” 

There is an urgent need for greater understanding of this vital yet under-explored topic.

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