China steps up routine air-sea patrols near Taiwan, narrowing the Strait’s buffers

Radar screens in Taiwan lit up late in the afternoon on Jan. 15 as Chinese warplanes began streaming across the center of the Taiwan Strait, accompanied by People’s Liberation Army Navy ships moving in nearby waters.

By the time the activity tapered off, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it had tracked 28 Chinese aircraft, including J-10 fighter jets, H-6K bombers, KJ-500 early warning planes and several drones. Eighteen of those aircraft crossed the Strait’s median line or its extension and flew into airspace off northern, central, eastern and southwestern Taiwan.

Taiwan’s military described the operation as a “joint combat readiness patrol” conducted “under the pretext” of training, accusing Chinese forces of using the mission to “harass Taiwan’s surrounding air and sea areas.” It said it responded with its own aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems, backed by what it called “joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

The patrol was the second large-scale air-sea operation China mounted around Taiwan in as many weeks and part of an emerging pattern that defense officials and analysts say is turning once-rare exercises into a standing feature of life in and around the Strait.

On Jan. 8, Taiwan said it had detected 21 Chinese aircraft, 19 of which crossed the median line into the northern, central and southwestern sectors of its air defense identification zone. The ministry said that operation was the first “joint combat readiness patrol” of 2026.

Less than 10 days later, on Jan. 24, Taiwan reported 23 more Chinese aircraft, 17 of them crossing the median line, along with Chinese naval vessels conducting what Taipei called “air-sea joint training” nearby.

Taken together, the moves suggest Beijing is shifting from high-profile, short bursts of activity toward a steadier tempo of pressure that keeps Taiwan’s military on edge and gradually erodes old boundaries in the Strait.

Median line ignored

The median line of the Taiwan Strait is an unofficial boundary, roughly equidistant between the Chinese and Taiwanese coasts, that for decades functioned as a buffer between their militaries. China has never formally recognized it, but for many years its pilots rarely crossed it.

That restraint has largely disappeared.

In its Jan. 8 and Jan. 15 statements, Taiwan’s defense ministry emphasized how many Chinese aircraft crossed the line, highlighting a trend that has accelerated since 2020 and spiked after high-level U.S. visits to Taipei in 2022. In late December 2025, during large-scale exercises branded “Justice Mission 2025,” Taiwan said around 90 Chinese aircraft crossed the median line in a single 24-hour period, one of the largest breaches on record.

Chinese officials frame the operations differently. During the December drills, Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Senior Col. Shi Yi said the exercises, which included sea-air combat patrols and simulated blockades, were a “stern warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and external interference.” He described them as “a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity.”

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claim and says only its 23 million people can decide their future.

New front at Pratas

While the January patrols hugged the skies and seas around Taiwan proper, a Chinese drone opened another front days later over a far-flung island.

On Jan. 17, Taiwan said a WZ-7 “Soaring Dragon” high-altitude surveillance drone entered its territorial airspace over Pratas Island, known in Chinese as Dongsha, in the northern South China Sea. The aircraft remained in the airspace — defined as within 12 nautical miles of the island — for about four minutes before turning away after repeated radio warnings, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.

Officials said the drone was flying above the effective range of its air defense weapons on the tiny atoll, which is controlled by Taiwan but claimed by China. It was the first time Taipei publicly acknowledged a Chinese military aircraft entering its territorial airspace rather than just its self-declared air defense identification zone, which extends much farther out.

Analysts quoted in regional reporting said the incursion suggested Beijing was probing what they described as a “soft spot” in Taiwan’s defenses, using an unmanned system to test reactions in a politically less risky way than sending a crewed aircraft.

Pratas lies far from Taiwan’s main island and closer to Hong Kong and China’s southern coast. Strategists have long debated whether Beijing might see such outlying islands as potential testing grounds for coercive tactics that fall short of a full-scale invasion but still challenge Taipei’s control.

From mega-drills to routine patrols

The January operations followed directly on the heels of Justice Mission 2025, a two-day exercise around Taiwan that ran from Dec. 29 to 30 and involved multiple services under the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command.

China’s Defense Ministry said those drills featured joint air and sea combat patrols, simulated joint strikes and blockade operations around “key targets” on Taiwan, and efforts to seize what it called “comprehensive superiority” across domains. Taiwan and outside trackers reported about 130 Chinese aircraft and 14 ships operating around the island during one of the days, with unusually high numbers crossing the median line.

Taiwan’s military has warned that exercises of that scale are not isolated shows of force, but building blocks for more regular activity.

In public assessments covering 2024 and most of 2025, Taiwan’s defense ministry said the PLA had been conducting roughly 40 joint combat readiness patrols a year, often several times a month. From January to September 2025, it counted more than 3,000 Chinese aircraft sorties crossing the median line or entering airspace to Taiwan’s southwest and east, alongside about 2,000 naval vessel sorties nearby.

An intelligence official quoted in one Taiwanese security publication said the term “joint combat readiness patrol” was used when Chinese activities involved coordinated action by air and naval forces in ways that resembled combat training rather than simple patrolling.

The ministry has cautioned that, in its view, PLA activity forms an “escalation ladder” that can move from training to exercises and, if ordered, “from exercises to actual war.”

Political and regional stakes

The renewed tempo comes less than two years into President Lai Ching-te’s term. Lai, of the Democratic Progressive Party, took office in May 2024, extending his party’s rule into an unprecedented third consecutive term. He has pledged to maintain the status quo and has called for dialogue with Beijing based on what he terms mutual respect, but Chinese officials label him a “separatist” and have linked increased military activity to what they view as his pro-independence leanings.

The PLA’s moves also unfold against a backdrop of internal change in China’s armed forces. In recent months, Beijing has reshuffled and investigated several senior officers, including figures in the rocket and joint staff departments, as part of a broader anti-corruption and loyalty drive under Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Some analysts say such shake-ups could encourage commanders in charge of the Taiwan theater to demonstrate readiness and resolve through visible operations.

Neighboring countries are watching closely. Japan has cited Chinese military activity near Taiwan and around its own southwestern islands as a key reason for record defense spending and its pursuit of long-range counterstrike capabilities. The United States, which maintains a “one China policy” but is obligated by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide arms for Taiwan’s self-defense, has called China’s drills and patrols coercive and says it wants to see the Strait remain peaceful and stable.

Growing risk, shrinking buffers

For Taiwan’s forces, the practical impact of the PLA’s sustained presence is immediate. Its air force now scrambles fighter jets or dispatches surveillance aircraft on an almost daily basis to track Chinese planes, imposing heavier maintenance and training demands on a relatively small fleet. Its navy shadows Chinese warships moving around the island and through nearby waters.

At the same time, the erosion of the median line and the first publicly acknowledged breach of territorial airspace near Pratas have narrowed the physical and political buffers that once separated Chinese and Taiwanese forces.

Officials and experts warn that as Chinese aircraft and ships operate closer and more frequently, the potential grows for accidents or miscalculations — a collision, a misinterpreted radar lock-on or a warning shot that spirals into something larger.

For now, the patrols and drone flights remain in the gray zone just short of open conflict. But with each new operation, the routine in the Taiwan Strait looks a little less like the old one, and the space for missteps grows smaller even as the distance between opposing forces shrinks.