TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — First island chain countries must work together to counter Chinese gray-zone tactics, Jason Wang, chief operating officer of Ingenispace, said Monday.

“Enabling transparency through intelligence sharing is the cheapest form of asymmetric warfare,” Wang wrote in a Japan Forward opinion article. Intelligence helps countries adjust their military strategy and spend defense resources more effectively as they respond to China’s expanding ambitions, he said.

Wang cited China’s targeting of submarine cables around Taiwan as an example of its gray-zone strategy. Taiwanese submarine power and internet cable owners believe submarine cable security falls under maritime law enforcement, he said. However, the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction only extends 44 kilometers from Taiwan’s shores, while the Navy does not intervene to avoid escalation.

“All this bureaucratic back-and-forth gives the PLA room to shape the battlefield to its advantage with minimal effort,” Wang said.

Countries including Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines must build defenses sufficient to sustain themselves for at least 90 days, he argued. Cooperation would involve integrating command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, he said.

Wang suggested that these countries could use 5G- and satellite-connected “smart masts” on their fishing fleets to extend national maritime domain awareness and turn the tables on China’s maritime militia. He added that software already exists to share data “across a single common operating picture, providing the transparency needed to counter irregular warfare.”

These technologies would cost only a fraction of the price of a Patriot battery, he said. “Transparency is what China fears most because it cheaply negates irregular warfare tactics.”

Wang said there were no excuses for first island chain countries not to take action.