• Maritime Security
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-39
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• 2024

This study started with the awareness that domestic studies on China's maritime gray zone strategy have been following the analysis results of previous studies, and that only principled positions and directions for countermeasures remain at the 'declarative and conceptual' level. In order to overcome the above problems, the author analyzed the maritime gray zone strategy being developed in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and the West Sea and Ieodo areas, recognizing that China is developing a maritime gray area strategy based on the 'three warfare' that constitutes its own strategic culture. As a result of the analysis, it is predicted that China's maritime gray zone strategy will be more aggressive in order to occupy the West Sea and Ieodo in the future. As a concept of our naval response strategy, The author proposed to 'neutralize' the development effect of 'three warfare', the basis of China's maritime gray zone strategy, to stop the gradual change in the phenomenon induced by China, and to continuously pursue 'return' to a maritime order based on norms and rules. In this study, a 'concrete and systemized' countermeasure to implement this was presented.