# ANALYSIS: China encircles Taiwan from the east — the fait accompli strategy

> Since June 1, 2026, the waters east of Taiwan — the Pacific Ocean, the island's "forgotten side" — are no longer what they were. The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) has been patrolling them almost continuously, according to maritime tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence. These are not waters that have been disputed forever. This is a front that has just been opened. And

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/analyse-la-chine-encercle-taiwan-par-l-est-la-strategie-du-fait-accompli

## Key takeaways

- Since June 1, 2026, the Chinese Coast Guard has patrolled waters east of Taiwan almost continuously, after Japan and the Philippines announced EEZ delimitation talks on May 28, 2026.
- From June 6 to 10, a Chinese Ministry of Transport operation reported 198 vessels inspected, but Taiwanese authorities said the CCG harassed merchant ships with radio calls about their ports.
- The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 surveyed the area June 16 to 18, collecting data that the author says could support military planning.
- On June 24, the US, UK, France and Germany issued a joint statement calling the activities deeply destabilizing; Beijing called the patrols legitimate.
- The author warns of a Kinmen-style normalization and a three-layer strategy, and urges stronger Western naval presence and action.

## Introduction: A new front east of **Taiwan**

### Waters that no longer belong to anyone

Since **June 1, 2026**, the waters east of **Taiwan** — the Pacific Ocean, the island's "forgotten side" — are no longer what they were. The **Chinese Coast Guard (CCG)** has been patrolling them almost continuously, according to maritime tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence. These are not waters that have been disputed forever. This is a front that has just been opened. And its significance goes far beyond the maritime dispute used as the official pretext.

The official pretext: on **May 28, 2026**, Japan and the Philippines announced the opening of negotiations to delimit their overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in waters south and east of **Taiwan**. **Beijing** immediately responded that those waters are part of its own EEZ — derived from its sovereign claim over **Taiwan**. And to prove it, it sent the **CCG** to patrol waters it had never patrolled systematically before. What could have been a diplomatic protest became a progressive occupation.

### What maritime tracking data shows

Data from **Starboard Maritime Intelligence** confirms that since **June 1, 2026**, **CCG** vessels have been patrolling waters east of **Taiwan** on a "near-continuous" basis. The **ISW (Institute for the Study of War)**, in its June 26 report, documents this persistent presence and its gradual escalation. On **June 6**, China's Ministry of Transport launched a "special maritime traffic control operation" coordinating the **CCG** with the maritime administrations of Fujian and Guangdong, the East China Sea Navigation Support Center, and the East China Sea Rescue Bureau. An administrative armada dressed up as law enforcement.

*The sea east of **Taiwan**. I had always imagined it as a natural buffer zone — the wide Pacific expanse protecting the island's eastern flank. That was an illusion. **China** has just shown it can reach there too. And it took six weeks to turn a Japanese-Philippine diplomatic announcement into a permanent maritime presence. That is the speed of the fait accompli strategy.*

## The June 6–10 operation: 198 vessels inspected

### Details of the special operation

From **June 6 to 10, 2026**, China's Ministry of Transport conducted a "special maritime traffic control and hydrographic survey operation" east of **Taiwan**. The official Chinese figures: **1,030 nautical miles** covered, **198 vessels** inspected, **3 "non-compliant" vessels** "rectified." **Beijing** presents this as routine maritime safety. **Taiwan**, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany see things differently.

According to Taiwanese authorities and confirmed by British defense journal Defense News on **June 24, 2026**, the **CCG** did not inspect vessels — it **harassed** them. Foreign merchant ships transiting those waters received radio calls from the **CCG** asking for their ports of departure and destination — attempting to create the appearance that **China** exercises jurisdiction over these waters. That is appropriation through administrative formality. A right created by repetition.

### **Taiwan** expels the vessels — but at what cost?

Taiwan's **Coast Guard Administration (CGA)** sent its own vessels to "warn" Chinese ships. Taiwan's Minister of National Defense **Wellington Koo** called the Chinese patrols a "provocative act" and "cognitive warfare." He said: "They are trying to claim the eastern waters as their domain first — as if casting an enormous spider's web across the area." The CGA declared it had "expelled" vessels from restricted waters. But the **CCG** came back. It always comes back.

***China** builds its maritime rights the same way it builds artificial islands in the South China Sea: through accumulation. A hydrographic survey here. A vessel inspection there. A regular patrol over there. And one day the world looks up and realizes **China** is "administering" waters that, legally, do not belong to it. It is the strategy of the frog in slowly boiling water.*

## The Xiang Yang Hong 22 research vessel: **Beijing**'s eyes

### A hydrographic survey that precedes a blockade

From **June 16 to 18, 2026**, the research vessel **Xiang Yang Hong 22**, owned by the East China Sea Bureau of the Ministry of Natural Resources, conducted a "marine environmental survey" east of **Taiwan**. The **ISW** and Australia's Lowy Institute explained the strategic stakes of that operation: the data collected — shipping lanes, maritime trade flows, submarine cables, water depth, oceanographic conditions — has both civilian and military applications.

To prepare a blockade of **Taiwan**, you need that data. Where does commercial traffic flow? Which submarine cables connect the island to the world? What anchorages are available? What depths allow submarine operations? The Xiang Yang Hong 22 is not a warship — it flies the civilian flag of natural resources. But the information it collects will feed Chinese military planners. That is the role of the civilian vanguard in Chinese military strategy.

### CCG–civilian vessel coordination: a troubling new development

The **ISW** also documented a first on **June 5–6, 2026** at Pratas Island (Dongsha) — another territory controlled by **Taiwan**: for the first time, a **CCG** vessel and a Chinese civilian research vessel (Hai Si Lu 6) **coordinated their operations** in Pratas's restricted waters. The **CCG** patrolled while the civilian vessel traced the boundary of restricted waters. This type of coordination between the armed and civilian arms of Chinese maritime power is a qualitative leap. It means the operations are planned, coordinated, and deliberate — not opportunistic.

*A research vessel and a coast guard vessel coordinating their movements in real time around Pratas — that is not coincidence. That is a sign that **Beijing** is testing operational procedures it will use at greater scale, in more important waters, at a time of its own choosing. The dress rehearsals for blockading **Taiwan** have begun. They just don't look like military exercises yet.*

## The Western response of June 24: "deeply destabilizing"

### A joint statement from the US, UK, France, and Germany

On **June 24, 2026**, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany issued a rare joint statement expressing concern over Chinese activities east of **Taiwan**. A US State Department spokesperson stated: "China's actions are deeply destabilizing." The European quadrilateral statement described Chinese activities as "novel" and stressed that they "threaten regional stability and the freedom of navigation of international commerce."

**Taiwan** welcomed the statement. The day before, the Wall Street Journal had published a lengthy article on Chinese assertions of authority over merchant vessels, triggering Western media attention on these patrols. International diplomatic pressure was synchronized with media coverage — a coordinated effort to make visible what **China** would prefer to do quietly.

### **Beijing** holds firm: "legitimate and necessary"

The Chinese response was immediate and unequivocal. Foreign Affairs spokesperson **Guo Jiakun** said that **CCG** patrols were "legitimate actions" to exercise jurisdiction over what he called the "EEZ and continental shelf of China in the waters east of China's Taiwan Island." Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson **Zhang Han** added that the waters Japan and the Philippines sought to delimit "are part of China's EEZ." **Beijing** does not acknowledge having done anything out of the ordinary.

*The US-UK-France-Germany joint statement is a signal. But I have learned to be wary of joint statements without concrete consequences. **China** has carefully studied Western reactions to its behavior in the South China Sea over the past ten years — and concluded that words cost nothing. What changes behavior is action. For now, the actions don't follow.*

## The ISW on June 26: the "nearby coastal waters" strategy revealed

### The claim of "nearby coastal waters"

The **ISW** report of **June 26, 2026** provided the most precise analysis of the ongoing Chinese strategy. A CCTV state television-affiliated social media account, **Yuyuan Tantian**, had claimed on June 20 that China's survey and law enforcement activities east of **Taiwan** suggested **Beijing** now considers that zone to be Chinese "**nearby coastal waters**" — the term used for waters China effectively administers. Unidentified sources from that same account claimed these activities "would become regularized" to "protect" Chinese maritime territory.

The **ISW** interpreted this as a deliberate PRC attempt to erode Taiwanese sovereignty and establish itself as the sole "legitimate guardian" of China's maritime boundaries — including those around **Taiwan**. It is the same playbook used at the Kinmen islands, Matsu, Pratas. First irregular patrols. Then regular patrols. Then normalized. Then claimed as historical right.

### The Kinmen model transposed east of **Taiwan**

The **ISW** identified what analysts call the "**Kinmen model**" — named for the Taiwanese islands close to the Fujian coast where the **CCG** began incursions into restricted waters in **February 2024**. Since then, those incursions have become nearly daily. The **CCG** presents them as normal maritime police patrols. The same sequence is now underway east of **Taiwan** — but in waters of immensely greater strategic importance, because they control maritime access to the Pacific from the Luzon Strait and the trade routes between Asia and the Americas.

*The Kinmen model. I remember the first time I read that phrase. An isolated island, a few CCG incidents, some tension — and two years later it's normalized. Today **Beijing** is applying the same formula east of **Taiwan**, but at the scale of the Pacific Ocean. If no one stops it, in two years the waters east of **Taiwan** will be as contested as those of the South China Sea.*

## The Fujian carrier and Taiwan's military exercise

### The simultaneous operations

From **June 22 to 26, 2026**, **Taiwan** conducted its own military exercise — counter-blockade maneuvers including tabletop simulations. During exactly that same period, the Chinese aircraft carrier **Fujian** — the most modern in China's navy — transited the **Taiwan** Strait. The simultaneity is not coincidence: it is a calculated show of force. While **Taiwan** rehearses countering a blockade, **China** sends its carrier as a message: we are here, we are watching, we can act.

**Taiwan** simulated the countermeasures for a Chinese maritime blockade during this exercise. The results — not published in detail — are worrying according to Taiwanese sources: simulations show that **Taiwan** must receive sufficient advance warning to move its strategic stockpiles of fuel, medicine, and food before a blockade begins. An island that depends on imports for **98%** of its energy cannot afford improvisation.

### Submarine cables: the absolute vulnerability

One of the lessons from the Chinese patrols documented by the **ISW** is the attention paid to **submarine cables**. The **CCG** explicitly patrolled in the zones where the submarine cables connecting **Taiwan** to the world are laid. Those cables carry **95%** of global data — including Taiwanese communications with its allies. Cutting them means digitally isolating **Taiwan** before a single soldier lands. And **China** knows exactly where they are. It just mapped them.

*Submarine cables haunt me in this story. They are fragile lines on the ocean floor connecting **Taiwan** to the world. If **China** cuts them — as it already did with cables near the Matsu islands in **2023** — the island is digitally isolated within hours. That is a surgical strike before the military strike. And the **CCG** just completed the exact inventory of their locations.*

## The "three-layer" strategy: naval, coast guard, administrative

### The architecture of grey-zone warfare

Australia's Lowy Institute published an illuminating analysis on June 18 on what **Beijing** is building east of **Taiwan**. It describes a "three-layer" strategy. The outer layer: the **naval military**, training for counter-intervention and area-denial operations to push back allied forces (American, Japanese) that might come to **Taiwan**'s aid. The middle layer: the **CCG**, conducting "maritime police" missions to create de facto jurisdiction over the waters. The inner layer: **maritime security, rescue, and hydrographic survey vessels**, providing administrative cover and collecting data.

This three-layer architecture is designed to be difficult to counter. If **Taiwan** or its allies respond militarily to **CCG** vessels, they find themselves attacking police forces — not armed forces. If they do not respond, **China** normalizes its presence. The trap is elaborate, patient, and perfectly logical within China's doctrine of "contactless warfare."

### The South China Sea precedents

The same strategy was applied in the South China Sea — with success. In 2012, **China** took control of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines after a standoff between the **CCG** and the Philippine navy. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines — but **China** ignored the ruling and kept control of the shoal. The lesson: international law cannot prevail over physical presence. **Beijing** learned that. It is now applying it east of **Taiwan**.

*Scarborough. Second Thomas Shoal. The Paracels. The Spratlys. The list of waters **China** has progressively "absorbed" in the South China Sea has been growing for twenty years. Every time, the world watched, protested, then accepted the fait accompli. Every single time. The question is: will the world let the same thing happen east of **Taiwan**? Because the stakes there are not just one island — they are the entire freedom of navigation of the western Pacific.*

## Japan and the Philippines: the unintended spark

### The Tokyo and Manila decision

On **May 28, 2026**, Japanese Prime Minister **Sanae Takaichi** and Philippine President **Ferdinand Marcos Jr.** announced that their countries would begin formal negotiations to delimit their overlapping EEZs in waters south and east of **Taiwan**. They specified that these bilateral discussions would not affect the rights of third parties. But **China** was furious: that delimitation would touch waters it considers its own — through its sovereign claim over **Taiwan** — and could potentially create new patrol routes and fishing zones for Tokyo and Manila.

China's reaction matched its fury. The Foreign Ministry called the negotiations "entirely illegal, null, and void." And the **CCG** immediately began its patrols. What was a diplomatic dispute became a maritime operation in **72 hours**. That is the speed of reaction **Beijing** wants to demonstrate — to discourage other countries from making similar decisions in the future.

### The Japan-Philippines-**China** triangle in the western Pacific

This dispute reveals a deeper geopolitical tension in the western Pacific. Japan and the Philippines — both US allies — are trying to manage their own maritime claims cooperatively. **China** interprets any regional cooperation that excludes it as an encirclement attempt. That is Beijing's strategic paranoia — real, documented, and self-fulfilling. By responding aggressively to a peaceful Japan-Philippines negotiation, **China** created precisely the regional alliance consolidation it feared.

*There is something tragically predictable about China's reaction to the Japan-Philippines negotiation. Two democracies trying to peacefully resolve a maritime question under international law — and **China** responds by sending its fleet. This behavior does not reassure. It convinces China's neighbors that they need stronger military alliances. **China** is manufacturing the encirclement it complains about.*

## The **Washington** Times: "rehearsals for a Taiwan blockade"

### The American strategic analysis

On **June 25, 2026**, the **Washington** Times published an analysis of Chinese patrols east of **Taiwan** under the striking headline: "China patrols seen as rehearsals for Taiwan blockade." The article, filed from Seoul, cited Taiwanese officials and American military analysts who interpreted the **CCG** patrols not as a response to the Japan-Philippines dispute, but as a deliberate long-term plan to test and normalize a presence in Taiwan's most strategically vital waters — those through which it receives imports and reinforcements.

A Taiwanese blockade differs from a direct military invasion: it is a progressive stranglehold that cuts the island off from the world without triggering conventional warfare. It uses naval force, submarines, the **CCG**, and economic pressure to force capitulation without combat. **China** has observed that Western democracies are more likely to abandon support for a partner under prolonged blockade than to intervene militarily against an invasion. A blockade is therefore the optimal strategy — and the June patrols are its opening moves.

### Taiwan's June 25 counter-blockade tabletop simulation

**Taiwan** responded to these pressures by holding a tabletop drill on **June 25, 2026** to simulate countering a Chinese maritime blockade. Taiwan's presidency and the Ministries of Defense and Economy participated. The simulated scenarios covered fuel, food, and medicine stockpiles, alternative supply routes, and communications with allies under maritime isolation. The exercise was made public — a signal sent to **Beijing** that **Taiwan** is preparing and is not naive.

***Taiwan** holds counter-blockade exercises while the Fujian carrier passes through the strait. That image captures **2026** in this part of the world. A democracy preparing. An autocracy testing. And between them, a maritime space that shrinks a little more each week. If the West doesn't grasp now how fast the situation is deteriorating, it will be too late to understand when **Beijing** decides to act.*

## The West and the strait: freedom of navigation at stake

### What the world would lose if **Taiwan** fell

**Taiwan** is not just a question of sovereignty or democratic rights — it is a question of **control over western Pacific trade routes**. More than **80% of global commerce** passes through seas near **Taiwan**. The Bashi, Luzon, and Miyako straits — all pass in proximity to **Taiwan**. If **China** controls these waters, it controls global supply chains — and the **TSMC** semiconductors that power every phone, car, and military system on the planet.

**TSMC** — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — produces **90%** of the world's most advanced chips. A **Taiwan** under Chinese control or subjected to a blockade is a **Taiwan** that stops producing those chips. That means a guaranteed global recession, a collapse of the global technology value chain, and a strategic advantage for **China** that would be industrially irreversible.

### The allied response: insufficient but present

The United States maintains freedom-of-navigation patrols in international waters near **Taiwan**. Japan has reinforced its Self-Defense Forces in the Ryukyu Islands, close to **Taiwan**. The Philippines, under Marcos Jr., has reactivated its alliance with **Washington** after years of ambiguity under Duterte. Australia participates in regular regional naval exercises. But taken together, these responses remain below the level of the Chinese threat, which evolves every month.

***TSMC**. That name should be on the lips of every Western government talking about **Taiwan**. This is not just a noble democratic cause — it is the beating heart of the global technology economy. Losing **Taiwan** means handing **China** the keys to the semiconductor supply chain. It means the end of Western technological supremacy. And I have the feeling no one in Brussels has truly understood that yet.*

## International law: a useful fiction but not enough

### The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

The **United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)** is the international legal framework governing EEZs, navigation rights, and hydrographic surveys. Under UNCLOS, the waters east of **Taiwan** are part of the Taiwanese, Japanese, and Philippine EEZs — not China's. **China** has no coastline facing those waters — unless one accepts its claim over **Taiwan**. Which international law does not.

But international law has no police force. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in 2016 that Chinese claims in the South China Sea were illegal. **China** ignored that ruling. It will do the same if an international tribunal rules on the waters east of **Taiwan**. Law, without coercive enforcement, is a suggestion that revisionist powers can ignore with impunity.

### The **UN** Security Council: paralyzed

**China** sits on the **UN** Security Council with veto power. Any resolution condemning its actions against **Taiwan** will be blocked. That is why the June 24 coalition — the US, UK, France, and Germany — chose a bilateral diplomatic statement rather than a UN resolution. But a statement without an enforcement mechanism is rhetoric. **Beijing** knows this. And it continues.

*International law without enforcement is politeness in a world of brutes. Useful on good days. Useless on bad ones. And we are living through bad days. The solution is not to abandon international law — it is to give it teeth. Concrete naval presences. Joint exercises. Demonstrations of force that tell **Beijing**: we are here, we are serious, and we are going nowhere.*

## The impact on Japan and the Philippines

### Tokyo between resolve and caution

Japan is on the front line of this crisis. The Ryukyu Islands, particularly Yonaguni — **110 km** from the Taiwanese coast — would be at the center of any conflict. Tokyo has increased defense spending, adopted a preemptive strike capability, and reinforced its military presence in the southern islands. But Japan is also deeply dependent on its economic relationship with **China** — its top trading partner. This tension between security interests and economic interests complicates the Japanese response.

Takaichi's decision to open maritime delimitation negotiations with the Philippines was a courageous act that triggered China's reaction. But Tokyo also maintains open diplomatic channels with **Beijing**. That is the impossible balance for small and medium powers neighboring an aggressive superpower: you can neither fully oppose it nor trust it.

### Manila and the dangerous triangle

The Philippines under Marcos Jr. clearly chose the Western camp after the Duterte years. American military bases are reactivated. Joint Balikatan exercises are multiplying. But the Philippines also received direct warnings from **Beijing** in June **2026** about their negotiations with Japan. Chinese **CCG** vessels inspected Philippine merchant ships in waters south of **Taiwan**. Manila is caught in a vice — exactly where **China** wants it.

*The Philippines. I think of the Filipino fishermen at Second Thomas Shoal, harassed by the **CCG** for years, unable to approach their own territory without American naval protection. That is the reality of living next to an expanding empire. It is not abstract for them. It is their daily life. And it should be our daily concern too.*

## The long-term strategy: what **China** is really building

### The 2027 or 2035 horizon: dates that keep coming up

American military analysts — notably within the Pentagon — believe **China** aims to have the military capability to invade **Taiwan** by 2027 (according to some), or by 2035 according to other planning timelines. These dates are not certainties — they reflect planning orientations, not irrevocable policy decisions. Xi Jinping has not necessarily decided to invade. But he is building the capability to do so — and the patrols east of **Taiwan** are part of that buildup.

What is happening in June **2026** is a preparation and testing phase. **China** is testing the reactions of **Taiwan**, Japan, the Philippines, the United States, and Europe. It is testing alliance cohesion. It is testing its own logistical and operational capacity to sustain a presence in these waters. Each successful test — in the sense that it does not trigger a meaningful response — brings it closer to the ability to turn its maneuvers into action.

### The window of opportunity: closing or opening?

There is debate among experts about the "window of opportunity" for Chinese action on **Taiwan**. Is it closing — because **Taiwan** is rearming, regional allies are strengthening, and the American military is consolidating its Pacific presence? Or is it opening — because the United States is distracted by **Ukraine**, the Middle East, and its own internal divisions? The June **2026** patrols fit squarely within this strategic uncertainty. **China** is not rushing — it is preparing.

*I do not want to be alarmist. But I want to be honest. What I see in the June **2026** data is a **China** methodically advancing toward the ability to control the waters surrounding **Taiwan** — not just the strait to the west, but now the Pacific Ocean to the east. That is an encirclement. And encirclements, in military history, precede sieges. The West should take note before the next step arrives.*

## Conclusion: The eastern waters will never be the same again

### A threshold crossed irreversibly

The **Chinese Coast Guard patrols east of Taiwan since June 2026** mark a threshold crossing. Not a war — nothing that dramatic. But something perhaps more dangerous over the long term: the progressive normalization of a presence in waters where **China** had no legal right to be. The Kinmen, Pratas, South China Sea precedents — all now applied to the Pacific Ocean itself. And once presence is normalized, there is no reversal in the history of Chinese maritime power.

### What the West must decide now

The Western response to this situation cannot be limited to joint statements. It must include regular naval patrols east of **Taiwan**, combined exercises with Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines, increased support for Taiwanese counter-blockade capabilities, and a clear decision: the democracies of the western Pacific will not stand alone against Chinese pressure. That message can only be sent through action — ships, aircraft, contractual arms delivery commitments. Words are no longer enough. They were already insufficient in the South China Sea.

*I close this analysis with a sense of obligation to sound the alarm. What is happening east of **Taiwan** in June **2026** is not yet a crisis — it is crisis preparation. And crises that we failed to see coming are always the most devastating. The West has the ability to see this one. The question is whether it has the political will to act before it is too late.*

## Conclusion: **Taiwan** has no hidden side left

### The island under total surveillance

In June **2026**, **Taiwan** is surrounded. To the west, the **Taiwan** Strait that the Chinese navy crosses regularly. To the northeast, the Japanese Ryukyu Islands under growing pressure. To the southwest, the South China Sea under Chinese de facto domination. And now to the east, the Pacific Ocean over which **China** is beginning to claim jurisdiction. There is no longer a "hidden side" to the island. **China** has begun the complete encirclement — slowly, methodically, wearing the costume of maritime management and water policing.

### The democracy of **23 million** people facing it alone

Twenty-three million Taiwanese live this reality every day. They elect their leaders, run a sophisticated economy, produce the semiconductors the entire world depends on — and face one of the most powerful armies in human history that prepares daily to swallow them whole. They deserve better than a joint statement from four countries. They deserve alliances, equipment, training, and a credible guarantee that the West will be there if **Beijing** acts. We are not there yet. And that is a collective shame that history will hold against us.

*Twenty-three million people. That is roughly the population of **Taiwan**. It is also roughly the population of Canada. I find it hard to imagine we would silently accept Canada being progressively encircled by a hostile power claiming its waters as its own. But for **Taiwan**, we display a patience I do not understand. That is not prudence — it is cowardice dressed up as diplomacy.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [China & Taiwan Update, June 26, 2026 — Institute for the Study of War — June 26, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/china-taiwan-update-june-26-2026/)

- [US, UK, France, Germany raise alarm about Chinese patrols off eastern Taiwan — Defense News — June 24, 2026](https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2026/06/24/us-uk-france-germany-raise-alarm-about-chinese-patrols-off-eastern-taiwan/)

- [China patrols waters east of Taiwan in response to Japan-Philippines talks — Japan Times — June 1, 2026](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/01/japan/china-patrol-taiwan-japan-philippines/)

- [China patrols seen as rehearsals for Taiwan blockade — Washington Times — June 25, 2026](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jun/25/china-patrols-seen-rehearsals-taiwan-blockade/)

- [China Announces Maritime Operation Near Taiwan Amid Japan talks — Militarnyi — June 26, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/china-maritime-operation-near-taiwan-talks/)

- [China & Taiwan Update, June 12, 2026 — Institute for the Study of War — June 12, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/china-taiwan-update-june-12-2026/)

### Secondary sources

- [China is turning the waters east of Taiwan grey — Lowy Institute — June 18, 2026](https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-is-turning-the-waters-east-of-taiwan-grey)

- [China Coast Guard patrols 'provocative,' MND says — Taipei Times — June 9, 2026](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2026/06/09/2003858765)

- [China's Assertions of Authority Over Foreign Ships Near Taiwan Draw U.S. Rebuke — Wall Street Journal — June 24, 2026](https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/chinas-assertions-of-authority-over-foreign-ships-near-taiwan-draw-u-s-rebuke-d0546eb0)

- [Taiwan simulates countering a Chinese maritime blockade in tabletop drill — Internazionale/Reuters — June 25, 2026](https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/06/25/taiwan-simulates-countering-a-chinese-maritime-blockade-in-tabletop-drill)

- [China Coast Guard patrols waters east of Taiwan Island — Xinhua — June 1, 2026](https://english.news.cn/20260601/85bf07d36127463da8edadf43ab2fd09/c.html)

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/analyse-la-chine-encercle-taiwan-par-l-est-la-strategie-du-fait-accompli