Taiwan's top representative in Britain is pressing the UK and allied democracies to jointly resist China's gray-zone pressure campaigns near Taiwan, framing it as a threat to global trade and security, not just Taiwan.

• China held snap military drills right after Taiwan's October national day, firing live rounds with little advance warning — a move that broke international maritime and aviation notification rules and disrupted shipping and flight paths.
• Similar unannounced Chinese naval drills have also hit waters near Australia and New Zealand, suggesting a wider pattern of pressure across the region, not just around Taiwan.
• Taiwan's envoy linked this to other gray-zone incidents in Europe, like Russian ships lingering near undersea cables and suspected anchor-dragging damage to Baltic Sea cables, arguing these tactics let authoritarian states probe and erode the rules without triggering outright war.
• The envoy warned China is trying to tighten an "anaconda" squeeze from Taiwan's east coast and lower the threshold for a blockade or invasion, which could cut off global access to advanced chips only Taiwan makes.
• Economists cited in the piece estimate a war over Taiwan could wipe out roughly 10% of global economic output.

Outlook: Taiwan is pushing for more intelligence-sharing and coordinated resistance among democracies, but China's pressure tactics near Taiwan and in other regional waters look set to continue or escalate.