Since the People's Liberation Army's encirclement drills around Taiwan in August 2022, I have tracked defense ministry disclosures and other open sources closely enough to notice a pattern: Chinese warships rotate through a standing position northeast of Lanyu and southeast of Green Island, watching traffic moving between the Western Pacific and the South China Sea. A low-key exercise this month all but confirms that pattern, and I believe Beijing is using it to send a pointed message: China now has the capability to control the Bashi Channel, one of the Western Pacific's most strategically important waterways. What puzzles me more is a different question entirely, which is why Taiwan's own Han Kuang 42 exercise only staged its first anti-landing scenario on Lanyu after three years of the drill's existence.
The same weeks brought a flurry of related activity. The PLA's Southern Theater Command ran a string of exercises in the South China Sea, apparently in response to what Beijing sees as provocations from the Philippines, the United States and Japan, while the Northern Theater Command staged a large naval exercise in the Yellow Sea timed to the US-South Korea joint drills there. Taken together, this looks like Beijing showcasing what I would describe as an armed presence across all of China's surrounding seas at once, a posture that has drawn growing concern from governments across the region.
A Message About Control Of The Bashi Channel
Between August 11 and 15, Taiwanese outlets widely reported a statement from China's defense ministry that a Chinese navy frigate had conducted a "transit exercise" with an Indonesian navy frigate in waters east of Taiwan in mid-August, involving communications drills and at-sea resupply meant to build joint operational capability. Indonesia's navy pushed back the very next day, saying its frigate KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai (332) was simply passing through on its way home from a visit to Russia and would hold "passing exercises," known as Passex, with Chinese, Japanese and US Seventh Fleet vessels along the way, unrelated to any combat training. Scholars quoted in the coverage described the encounter as about as low level as naval exercises get.
Piecing together the Indonesian frigate's actual itinerary tells a fuller story. It had taken part in the opening ceremony of the Russia-Indonesia ORRUDA-2026 exercise in Vladivostok on July 29, then carried out joint maneuvers, gunnery and search and rescue drills in the Sea of Japan. That same week, Chinese destroyers Kaifeng and Anshan and the supply ship Kekexili Lake, sailing with a Russian frigate, wrapped up the seventh China-Russia joint patrol, a nearly complete loop around Japan running from July 13 through the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, Western Pacific, Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan before arriving in Vladivostok on the 29th. Taiwan's Liberty Times separately reported on August 12 that the Indonesian frigate left Yokosuka on August 8, circled through waters east and southeast of Taiwan on the 11th with nothing unusual in its track, then turned south for home that evening.
What actually holds my attention is not Indonesia's routine visits and joint training across the Asia Pacific, which I do not spend much time following, but the message China's defense ministry chose to send through this "transit exercise": that Beijing already has the ability to control the Bashi Channel, a strategic corridor it clearly wants the world to know it can dominate.
Tracking The Warships Behind The Signal
China's defense ministry identified its vessel as the frigate Honghe, which I traced to the Eastern Theater Navy's 16th Frigate Flotilla based in Xiamen. Although classified as a Type 054A, Honghe belongs to the fifth production batch, often called the improved 054AG variant, with a lengthened hull, a redesigned aft superstructure, an enlarged flight deck and a Z-20F helicopter in place of older models. Homeported in Xiamen with a patrol area covering the Taiwan Strait down to waters southwest of Taiwan, the ship has previously served in Gulf of Aden escort duty and anti-submarine training, giving it the range to sail from Xiamen past Eluanbi to waters east of Taiwan and sustain roughly a month on station.
Cross-referencing that with the defense ministry's own aircraft activity graphics is revealing. Between 1340 on August 12 and 0600 on August 13, two helicopters were active in a box east of Hualien extending to the edge of Taiwan's air defense identification zone, which by my reading points to at least two Chinese ships of 3,000 tons or more stationed there, one very likely Honghe, probably on station for some time already. The extended time those helicopters stayed aloft suggests the ship's air wing has shifted from the older Z-9 anti-submarine helicopter to the longer endurance Z-20.
A supplementary table of PLA helicopter specifications and a related figure, both compiled by this author, accompany the original Chinese article and help illustrate that shift.
That pattern lines up with an assessment I made after the August 2022 encirclement drills: since then, the PLA's Eastern Theater has kept at least one ship on constant rotation in each of four zones around Taiwan, southwest, southeast to east, northeast and north, where a carrier has typically already been stationed directly off the strait, and the ship in the southeast to east zone exists specifically to monitor Western Pacific and South China Sea traffic. A civilian open source tracking account called Taiwan ADIZ recorded a second relevant episode on August 12, when a US aircraft operating nearby drew a radio warning from the Chinese destroyer Nanjing, a Type 052D belonging to the Eastern Theater Navy's 6th Destroyer Flotilla out of Zhoushan, Zhejiang, a ship with its own history of long range training in the strait.
The same tracking account reported intercepting radio traffic at 1852 on August 18 describing a standoff between the Chinese frigate Hefei (174) and Taiwan's navy vessel Magong (1805). Hefei is a Type 055 destroyer from the Southern Theater Navy's 9th Destroyer Flotilla based at Yalong Bay in Sanya, Hainan, while Magong is homeported at the Zhongzheng base in Suao under Taiwan's 168th Fleet, which places the encounter somewhere off Taiwan's northeast coast. That location may connect to an August 11 Liberty Times report that Taiwanese fishermen spotted seven Chinese vessels sailing in single file roughly 35 nautical miles northwest of Mudou Islet near Penghu around noon that day. Warships led the formation, and the group appeared to include a Southern Theater Type 082II minesweeper, Yangshuo; a vessel marked with a red cross, almost certainly the Southern Theater's only Type 920 hospital ship, Silk Road Ark (867); and a seventh ship carrying three spherical radar domes consistent with a Type 815A electronic reconnaissance vessel, a class the Southern Theater operates as Tianwangxing (793), Tianquanxing (795) and Haiwangxing (792).
Some scholars describe this kind of China Indonesia Passex as about the lowest tier a naval exercise can be, noting many countries have done similar drills with China, but that reassurance is precisely what worries me most. Long term observation of PLA exercises with foreign militaries shows a consistent pattern of starting low and escalating step by step, and this time China is using real capability to take a genuine first move, using the drill to assert practical jurisdiction and monitoring reach over these waters. Nor is this the first China Indonesia encounter of its kind. In a fourth China Russia joint patrol from July 3 to 16, 2024, Southern Theater destroyer Yinchuan (175), frigate Hengshui (572) and supply ship Weishanhu (887) sailed with the Russian Pacific Fleet's Guardian class frigate Sovershennyy (333) and a Dubna class supply ship, taking a modest combined force from the East China Sea through the Western Pacific, the Bashi Channel and into the South China Sea. Whether that China Russia template eventually extends to countries that hold "comprehensive strategic partnerships" with Beijing across Southeast Asia is a question worth watching closely.
A Patrol With The Fewest Aircraft On Record
I had previously flagged for readers that, based on past patterns, the PLA's Eastern Theater typically launches a so called joint combat readiness patrol around Taiwan within a week of Han Kuang wrapping up, choosing a day with suitable weather. That held true again: Han Kuang 42 ended on August 14, and the next day, Saturday the 15th, Taiwan's defense ministry announced at 1500 that it had detected ten sorties of J-11, JH-7 and Su-30 fighters starting at 0828, six of which crossed the median line into northern and central airspace, coordinated with Chinese ships, in what was billed as a joint combat readiness patrol. The number startled me: by my count, it was the smallest air component ever recorded for one of these joint sea and air patrols.
The following morning, Sunday the 16th, I waited for the ministry's routine release on Chinese activity around the strait, but it was the Liberty Times that reported first, at 1035, that from 6 a.m. the previous day to 6 a.m. that morning, Taiwan had detected 11 Chinese aircraft sorties, seven of which crossed the median line into northern and central airspace, alongside eight Chinese warship sorties and two government vessel sorties active continuously around the strait. I initially doubted that account, since Taiwan's own tally for the strait itself, ten fighter and support sorties between 0750 and 1055 operating from waters northeast of Dongyin to southeast of Kinmen with six crossing the median line, seemed to tell a smaller story. It was not until 1250 that afternoon that the ministry finally posted the fuller figures on its own website, confirming the media report. My earlier hesitation reflected the fact that a genuine joint combat readiness patrol has historically involved an air posture that traces something like a C shaped arc around Taiwan, and this time that shape simply was not there.
Unusually, the Eastern Theater launched another joint combat readiness patrol just two days later, a gap short enough to leave observers puzzling over the cause. The day before, on August 17, reports surfaced that a US P-8A had been tracked flying off Taitung, spotted by plane trackers near Green Island and Lanyu, which suggests Washington may have been gathering its own intelligence on Chinese activity near those islands. The eight Chinese ships remained active through August 18, when the defense ministry reported at 1310 that starting at 0855 it had detected 18 sorties of J-10, J-11, J-16 and KJ-500 aircraft, 13 of which crossed the median line and its extension into northern, central and southwestern airspace, again coordinated with ships under the joint combat readiness patrol label. Japanese disclosures the same day showed a Chinese Y-9 electronic reconnaissance aircraft and a TB-001 reconnaissance strike drone operating over a wide stretch of the East China Sea, suggesting Beijing used the cover of its Taiwan patrol window to simultaneously collect intelligence on Japanese and American military facilities.
Taiwan's Waters Are Becoming China's Training Ground
My longer running research into what triggers these joint sea and air patrols points to a mix of political, military and diplomatic factors tied to Taiwan. The most plausible trigger this time surfaced in coverage on the 15th: Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration announced that a ten day training program had begun at its education and assessment center, with a US Coast Guard mobile training team exchanging practical experience with Taiwanese personnel, publicized under the banner of deepening two weeks of joint practical training between the two coast guards. That kind of public fanfare from Taipei almost certainly touched a nerve in Beijing and helps explain a faster, more varied response, with the defense ministry recording an average of eight Chinese ships and six to seven government vessels, possibly including coast guard ships, active from August 16 through 19.
Weather across Taiwan during that stretch was unsettled, with northeast monsoon winds bringing showers to the north and afternoon thunderstorms further south, yet Chinese activity barely paused. Ministry data released on August 20 for the previous day still showed seven Chinese aircraft sorties, five of which entered northern, southwestern and eastern airspace. Reading the ministry's own activity graphics for that day, I count a helicopter active north of the Diaoyutai Islands from 1600 to 1805, two fighters active west of the strait between Wuchiu and waters south of Kinmen from 1225 to 1355, a drone and helicopter pair active far southwest of Taiwan between southeastern Guangdong and Taiwan's southwest from 1000 to 1735, and two more helicopters active from waters east of Hualien to southeast of Green Island between 0830 and 1710. Since three of those aircraft were almost certainly shipborne helicopters, that points to at least three Chinese ships positioned to Taiwan's southwest, southeast and north simultaneously, a posture that amounts to encirclement and should not be dismissed.
The broader trend this year backs that up. Because ships can remain on station far longer than aircraft, and their radars and air defense missiles reach further while offering more integrated combat power than a lone fighter, the PLA appears to be shifting away from simply flying large numbers of aircraft and toward maintaining a smaller, higher quality air presence backed by more ships parked semi permanently within roughly 24 nautical miles of Taiwan. In practice, the waters around Taiwan have become a training ground for the Chinese navy.
A Four Sea Presence That Worries The Region
One widely circulated storyline ties recent PLA activity in the Bohai Strait and northern Yellow Sea, running from 1600 on August 16 through 1600 on August 30, to anger in Beijing over Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's actions around Japan's August 15 surrender anniversary. Takaichi did not visit Yasukuni Shrine in person but, in her capacity as Liberal Democratic Party president, paid for a ritual offering and bowed toward the shrine from a nearby parking lot. Some coverage framed the subsequent Chinese drills as retaliation for that gesture. My own multi year tracking of this specific patrol area tells a different story: China runs military tasks there essentially year round, roughly twice a month, each lasting about 14 days, making the timing look far more routine than reactive. A similar coincidence played out last year, when Takaichi told Japan's parliament on November 7 that a Chinese use of force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival threatening situation" for Japan, implying Tokyo might deploy its own forces in a Taiwan crisis, and commentary at the time linked that remark to a PLA task window running from November 9 to 23. Recorded windows both before and after that one, in October and into December, suggest the same twice monthly rhythm rather than a one off response.
Compiling a month's worth of Chinese state media disclosures on coastal military activity gives a clearer sense of how widely China has been operating, with the past two weeks standing out in particular.
In the South China Sea, the PLA ran drills daily from August 12 to 18 between 0900 and 1800 across a 1,468 square kilometer zone northeast of Hainan, plus a separate 407 square kilometer zone active on the 13th, 14th and 15th. Live fire exercises took place on the 12th and 14th in an 806 square kilometer zone southeast of Shantou, while a much larger 12,145 square kilometer zone northwest of the Paracel Islands saw activity from 0600 on the 11th through 1800 on the 15th, likely involving the Southern Theater's Xisha maritime security forces alongside destroyer, frigate and submarine units based in Sanya.
In the Taiwan Strait, PLA artillery conducted live fire training at the Jiangyin port area of Xinghua Bay on August 5, on top of the two joint combat readiness patrols already described on the 15th and 18th.
In the East China Sea, drills ran in an 85.3 square kilometer zone east of the Oufei tidal flat near Wenzhou across three windows between August 18 and 20, alongside a separate 215 square kilometer exercise southeast of Xiangshan Port in Zhejiang on the 13th, a location that hosts an Eastern Theater Navy submarine base, suggesting that drill was aimed at defending a sensitive military installation.
In the Yellow Sea, South Korean broadcaster KBS reported that this year's US-South Korea Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise would fold in drone operations, GPS jamming, electronic warfare and cyberattack scenarios in response to shifts in North Korean capability, with an added element of constraining China, and that the US Army's 8th Army would join with a focus on "Fight Tonight" readiness. Chinese state media announced that same evening that the PLA would operate across two Yellow Sea zones, one covering 29,752 square kilometers and another 2,280 square kilometers, from August 17 through the 20th. Yonhap reported the US-South Korea exercise formally began on the 17th and was due to run through the 27th, covering joint operations across every domain to rehearse realistic modern warfare scenarios. China issued a parallel maritime warning that day for a 31,378 square kilometer zone between Qingdao and Chengshantou. By August 19, however, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the drill would end six days early, on the 21st, cutting its run roughly in half and dropping counteroffensive rehearsals in favor of defensive training. Chinese media reported that evening that the PLA would instead operate in a 33,951 square kilometer zone between Qingdao and Chengshantou from the 20th through the 23rd, barring entry and canceling the earlier notice. Qingdao is home to the PLA Northern Theater Navy's main base, including its 1st Destroyer Flotilla, 2nd Submarine Flotilla, 1st Landing Ship Group and 1st Combat Support Ship Flotilla, and a no sail zone of that shape has not been seen there in recent memory. Reading the timing of the US-South Korea drill, Chinese state media's own announcements and the shortened schedule together, my preliminary assessment is that the windows from the 17th to the 20th and the 20th to the 23rd reflect the PLA mobilizing sea and air forces to respond quickly to the US-South Korea exercise, running joint patrols and near shore defense drills of its own.
To be clear, the activity in the Yellow Sea and northern Yellow Sea documented here has nothing to do with Takaichi's remote gesture toward Yasukuni Shrine, a connection China's own foreign ministry was the first to publicly raise. Readers and other outlets do not need to read more into that link than the facts support.
The author is a researcher at the Republic of China Strategic Studies Association (中華戰略學會).
YP
