The PRC’s slow war against the Republic of China and other neighbors is slogging on and seems to be speeding up, suggests ISW. The PRC “may be aiming to alter the status quo in the West Pacific by expanding its regular law enforcement and research activity to the waters east of Taiwan” (June 26, 2026).
The PRC likely aims to erode Taiwanese sovereignty and establish itself as the sole legitimate caretaker of “China’s” maritime boundaries, including those around Taiwan and its outlying islands.
PRC social media account Yuyuan Tantian, which is affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, claimed on June 20 that the PRC’s recent environmental survey and law enforcement activity suggested that the PRC may consider the area east of Taiwan to be PRC “near-shore waters.” The PRC’s Ministry of Natural Resources’ East China Sea Bureau deployed the research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 to conduct a “marine environmental survey” east of Taiwan from June 16 to 18. Chinese Coast Guard vessels have patrolled east of Taiwan almost continuously since June 1, according to ship tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence.
The PRC’s Ministry of Transport also conducted a “special maritime law enforcement operation” east of Taiwan from June 6 to 10 in response to Japanese-Philippine efforts to delimit their overlapping exclusive economic zone claims in the area.
The PRC may use Japan-Philippines delimitation efforts as an excuse to extend its law enforcement and research operations beyond the first island chain. Yuyuan Tantian cited unnamed sources who claimed that although the PRC had conducted research operations east of Taiwan before, the June research and law enforcement activity would become regularized to “protect” the PRC’s maritime territory….
Expanding the [Chinese Coast Guard’s] jurisdiction around Taiwan could free up PLA Navy assets for other missions in the Pacific.
News 18 puts it like this: “In recent weeks, Chinese vessels have conducted what Beijing describes as law-enforcement operations east of Taiwan, mapped the seabed in strategically sensitive waters and carried out research inside the lagoon at Scarborough Shoal, a disputed feature located hundreds of miles from China. Taken together, the moves suggest that Beijing is trying to extend its authority across some of the most contested waters in the western Pacific, raising concern in Taiwan and the Philippines.”
This is a kind of concern that is never not being raised.
The method of incrementally but relentlessly encroaching on the sovereignty and territory of other countries often used by the People’s Republic of China is sometimes called salami-slicing. It’s just one slice at a time. But since the cleaver keeps swinging, the slices add up. Not so long ago there was a median or center line in the Taiwan Strait that, for decades, the Chinese military mostly did not cross, recognizing it in practice if not in principle. Now this line has been erased.
Also see:
Global Taiwan Institute: “The PLA Air Force Erases the Taiwan Strait Centerline” (September 7, 2022)
