Asia Defense | Security | East Asia

China’s Navy Is Shifting Pressure Beyond the Taiwan Strait

China did not launch a large-scale, Taiwan-specific military exercise after the Trump-Xi meeting. But that doesn’t mean the PLAN has been inactive.

As temperatures rose sharply in May, China carried out four “joint combat readiness patrols” around Taiwan, on May 1, 6, 19, and 25. When compared with similar activity in recent years, this high frequency of military operations is unusual. It also suggests that the assumption that a recent decline in the number of PLA sorties around Taiwan necessarily indicates a reduced threat may not fully correspond to the current security environment in the Taiwan Strait.

This pattern should also be read alongside recent media reports that more than 100 Chinese vessels had been deployed around the First Island Chain. Taken together, these developments show that although China did not launch a large-scale, Taiwan-specific military exercise after the Trump-Xi meeting, it has instead relied on frequent joint combat readiness patrols and increased naval deployments. These appear to be service-specific exercises led primarily by the PLAN. 

A similar pattern was seen in early December 2025, when China conducted a navy-centered exercise involving nearly 100 vessels operating in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea within the First Island Chain. This may indicate a semiannual service-level exercise by the PLAN. That said, while the scale of the fleet deployment was large, it did not yet amount to a cross-service joint operation.

Recent PLA activity suggests that although the Eastern Theater Command increased the frequency of joint combat readiness patrols directed at Taiwan in May, these actions did not escalate to the level of large-scale Taiwan-focused exercises such as Joint Sword or Strait Thunder. This indicates that while Beijing continues to normalize military pressure against Taiwan, it does not necessarily seek to sharply raise tensions in the Taiwan Strait at this stage.

Instead, from Beijing’s perspective, the East China Sea and South China Sea may now be higher priorities for military deterrence than the Taiwan Strait itself. Following the Philippines-U.S. Balikatan exercises, the United States’ effort to strengthen Indo-Pacific defense........

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