# COLUMN: Taiwan Expels, Beijing Returns — The South China Sea as a Full Dress Rehearsal

> On June 7, 2026, Taiwan's coast guard deployed seven patrol vessels to intercept four Chinese government ships that had entered restricted waters located 30 nautical miles southwest of the island's southern tip. The radio exchange, made public by Taipei, was tense: an unidentified Chinese officer declared that these waters were "under Chinese jurisdiction" and that his vessels

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-taiwan-expulse-pekin-revient-la-mer-de-chine-meridionale-comme-repetit

## Introduction: A Sunday, June 7 That Looks Like Every Sunday, Except It Looks Like None

### Seven Taiwanese Patrol Vessels Against Four Chinese Ships

On **June 7, 2026**, Taiwan's coast guard deployed **seven patrol vessels** to intercept **four Chinese government ships** that had entered **restricted waters** located **30 nautical miles southwest of the island's southern tip**. The radio exchange, made public by **Taipei**, was tense: an unidentified Chinese officer declared that these waters were "**under Chinese jurisdiction**" and that his vessels were conducting a "**special maritime law enforcement operation**." A Taiwanese officer responded that **China enjoys no sovereign rights** in these waters and warned: "**If a conflict occurs, your side will face sanctions from the entire world.**"

By late afternoon, the four Chinese vessels were **expelled**. But they were still positioned **33 nautical miles southeast of the island's southern tip**, maintaining a **standoff** posture. Both fleets continued to face each other at sea. For **Taipei**, it was a partial victory. For **Beijing**, it was precisely what had been planned.

### An Operation Organized by the Ministry of Transport — Not the Navy

What makes this incident particularly revealing is its bureaucratic architecture. It was not the **People's Liberation Army Navy** that organized the June 6 operation. It was Beijing's **Ministry of Transport** — with the participation of the **Fujian and Guangdong maritime administrations**, the **East China Sea Navigation Support Center**, and the **East China Sea Rescue Bureau**. Officially: deep-water patrol reinforcement, traffic regulation, maritime safety. In reality: an operation of **statecraft below the threshold of armed conflict**, carefully designed to avoid triggering an American military response while performing sovereignty.

Analyst **Zack Liao** of **Observing China** put it plainly: this was not a normal maritime security operation. **Beijing had no need to cross Taiwan's waters to ensure maritime safety**. The aim was to "**perform jurisdiction, test Taiwan's response, and normalize Chinese state presence east of the island**."

*What Beijing is building in the South China Sea is not a casus belli — it's a gradual normalization of its presence in waters it claims but does not control. Each successful Taiwanese expulsion is framed by Beijing as a minor setback in a long-term process. It's a strategy of geopolitical attrition, and it's remarkably effective.*

## The Gray Zone Doctrine: How Beijing Turns Routine Into Claims

### Perform Jurisdiction Before Exercising It

The **gray zone warfare** doctrine China practices in waters around Taiwan rests on a simple principle: **accumulating precedents creates normalcy, and normalcy creates de facto law**. Every Chinese coast guard vessel that enters Taiwan's restricted waters — even briefly, even when expelled — sends a message to other regional actors — Japan, the Philippines, the United States — and to the international community: **China is present here. It acts here. These waters are contested.**

The June 6–7 operation had an additional dimension: it explicitly targeted discussions between **Japan** and the **Philippines** on maritime boundary delimitation in waters Beijing considers its own jurisdiction. **Beijing condemned these talks as "illegal"** and used the Taiwan operation as an indirect coercive response — a simultaneous message to Taipei, Tokyo, and Manila.

### The Four Vessels of the June 6 Operation

**Haixun 09**: 10,000 tons, Guangdong maritime service. **Haixun 06**: approximately 6,000 tons, Fujian maritime service. **Haixun 08**: 7,500 tons, hydrographic vessel. **Donghaijiu 113**: 3,500-ton rescue vessel. These ships are not warships — but they are powerful state vessels capable of sustaining prolonged presence. **Vessel Finder** data allowed Taiwanese journalists to confirm their trajectories and positions in real time. During the operation, these vessels also contacted by radio **at least three foreign merchant ships**, asking for their port of departure, destination, and crew count — what experts describe not as a legitimate safety measure, but as **harassment of civilian navigation**.

Data from the **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** contextualizes the scale of the phenomenon: since **February 2025**, Chinese coast guard vessels have conducted **39 incursions into restricted waters around the Pratas Islands** — 33 in 2025 and 6 in 2026. In **May 2026** alone, four incursions into **Kinmen** waters. **On June 11, 2026**, for the first time, two Chinese vessels entered the "prohibited" waters around **Itu Aba Island** in the Spratlys — 15 minutes before being expelled.

*Every time I compile these numbers — 39 incursions, 33 in 2025, now the Spratlys — I have the feeling of watching a clock advancing. Beijing is not rushing an invasion. Beijing is planting milestones, one by one, with a strategic patience that the West, accustomed to fast and visible crises, struggles to analyze correctly. This war is being fought in months and years, not hours.*

## The Pratas Islands: The Most Fragile Link in Taiwan's Maritime Defense

### A Poorly Defended, Strategically Crucial Atoll

The **Pratas Islands** — also known as **Dongsha** — are administered by Taiwan and located in the northern part of the South China Sea, between the main island and **Hong Kong**. They are guarded by Taiwan's coast guard, not the regular military. Their permanent population is minimal. Their strategic value, however, is considerable: they command a key position across maritime routes between the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

According to **Stars and Stripes**, since the start of **2026**, Chinese coast guard vessels have expelled Taiwanese ships from Pratas waters **six times**. On **May 25, 2026**, the Chinese vessel **CCG-3501** — 5,500 tons — entered claimed Taiwanese waters, triggering a radio confrontation during which the Chinese crew asserted that **China holds sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Dongsha Islands**, and broadcast a message promoting forced reunification. Taiwan's coast guard responded: "**Your actions prove that China's peace is a sham.**"

### Defending Pratas — and What It Would Take

Taiwan's **Coast Guard Administration** announced in response to the 2026 escalation that it would **deploy larger patrol vessels** in the area and **secure monthly resupply routes**. But the geographic reality is stubborn: Pratas is **340 kilometers southwest of the main island**. A massive Chinese military navy deployment could reach the atoll well before any significant Taiwanese reinforcements could arrive.

Regional security experts compare the vulnerability of Pratas to that of the **Second Thomas Shoal** — the contested reef between China and the Philippines, where Beijing has used water cannons and intimidation maneuvers to block Philippine resupply missions. If Beijing applies the same attrition logic to Pratas, Taiwan could find itself in a situation where maintaining control of the atoll becomes politically and logistically untenable, without a single shot being fired.

*Beijing's strategy toward Pratas reminds me of the salami theory — slice it so thin that each individual slice doesn't seem to justify a response. But after 39 slices, there isn't much salami left. Taiwan and its allies must decide at which slice they stop.*

## June 17 — Kinmen: The Sixth Incursion of the Month

### Four Chinese Vessels, Two Hours of Standoff

On **June 17, 2026**, Taiwan's coast guard deployed several vessels to intercept and expel **four Chinese coast guard ships** that had entered restricted waters around **Kinmen Island**. The operation lasted approximately two hours before the Chinese vessels withdrew. According to official Taiwanese data, this was the **sixth documented incursion** in Kinmen waters since the beginning of the month, and the **21st confirmed incursion** near the Kinmen archipelago since the start of **2026**. In total, **29 gray zone operations** along Taiwan's maritime boundaries have been recorded for the current year.

**Kinmen Island** is particularly sensitive: it lies only a few kilometers from the coast of **Fujian**, on the Chinese mainland. Historically, it was the site of direct military confrontations during the **First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises** in the 1950s. Today, Chinese incursions around Kinmen serve a rhetorical as much as strategic purpose: they remind everyone that Beijing can exert pressure a few kilometers from the doorstep of a potential American ally, without crossing the threshold of declared war.

### Washington Diplomatically Rebukes Beijing

The **Wall Street Journal** reported that the **United States officially reprimanded** Beijing for its attempts to assert authority over foreign vessels navigating near Taiwan. Washington reaffirmed that waters to the east and south of the island are **international waters** where freedom of navigation applies, and that China has no legitimate authority to impose traffic controls or interrogate third-party vessels.

But a diplomatic rebuke, however clear, doesn't carry the deterrent force of a naval presence. The American carrier strike group **USS Ronald Reagan** and its escorts conducted exercises in the region, but the intensity of Chinese gray zone operations has not diminished. The escalation continues because the cost Beijing pays for these operations remains low, and the gain in terms of gradually normalizing its presence is real.

*Washington has always responded to Chinese pressure with statements of principle, "profound concerns," and reminders of international law. I'm not saying that's unnecessary. But China doesn't act because it has forgotten international law. It acts because it calculates that the cost of its actions remains below the threshold that would trigger a concrete response. That calculation must change — or the incursions will keep accumulating.*

## June 18: Taiwan Condemns Chinese Marine Survey in Its EEZ

### A Scientific Research Vessel in the Eastern EEZ

On **June 18, 2026**, Taiwan's coast guard expelled a Chinese research vessel that was conducting what Beijing called a "**marine environmental survey**" in Taiwan's **Exclusive Economic Zone**, **41 nautical miles east of Hualien**. The vessel, which departed **Zhoushan** on June 10, had progressively advanced toward Taiwanese waters before being intercepted. **Vessel Finder** data confirmed the ship was withdrawing from the area after the intervention.

This incident adds to the list of "**firsts**" that Beijing is deliberately accumulating: first coordination between coast guard vessels and research vessels at Pratas, first intrusion into the prohibited waters of Itu Aba, and now a scientific survey in the eastern EEZ. Each "first" establishes a precedent. Each precedent is meant to become the baseline for the next operation. Taiwan's **Central Agency for Ocean Affairs** declared that this "**proves that what China has done in the waters east of Taiwan must be treated as a challenge to the international order**."

### The Regional Dimension: Japan, the Philippines, ASEAN

The escalation around Taiwan in June 2026 cannot be understood in isolation. It fits into a regional pattern: simultaneously, Chinese coast guard vessels are **blocking Philippine resupply missions** at the **Second Thomas Shoal**, Chinese military aircraft are regularly violating Japan's **Air Defense Identification Zone** around the **Senkaku Islands**, and China's **fishing fleet** maintains an intimidating presence in the waters of several **ASEAN** members. The **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** documents how the **Dutch frigate De Ruyter** faced verbal warnings and **electronic jamming** after a freedom of navigation operation near the **Paracel Islands** on May 28, 2026.

This overall picture reveals a deliberate strategy: **simultaneously test several regional actors**, keep each escalation below the threshold that would trigger a collective response, and probe the cracks in the American-Japanese-Australian security coalition that constitutes the primary barrier to Beijing's regional ambitions. Taiwan is the center of gravity of this strategy — but not the only target.

*What strikes me about Beijing's regional strategy is its cross-cutting coherence. No improvisation, no accidental escalation — coordinated pressure on all vulnerable actors simultaneously, designed to exhaust each one's response capacity. It's a doctrine. And against a doctrine, you need a counter-doctrine — not just individual reactions to each incident.*

## What All This Is Rehearsing — and What It Isn't

### The Dress Rehearsal Thesis

Several regional security experts, including analysts from the **ISW** and the **Center for Strategic and International Studies**, see in the accumulation of these gray zone operations a **dress rehearsal**: Beijing is learning Taiwan's responses, testing its reaction times, measuring the consistency of its protocols, assessing the speed and scope of the American diplomatic response. Each operation is data collection for the next one — and potentially for something far larger.

This thesis is sound, but it needs nuancing. A rehearsal does not imply a timeline. **Xi Jinping** has not set a deadline for direct military action against Taiwan — or at least, no public evidence exists to that effect. What is certain is that gray zone pressure is already altering the status quo without a shot fired. **Itu Aba** was penetrated for the first time. The **eastern EEZ** was scientifically surveyed. **Civilian navigation** was interrogated. These precedents now exist. Whatever follows, they are already part of the record.

### The Danger of Background Noise

The most immediate risk may not be a deliberate invasion — it's an **accidental escalation** triggered by the saturation of standoffs. When forces on both sides operate at very close range, under constant pressure, with tense radio exchanges, the probability of an unplanned incident rises. A warning shot misinterpreted. An avoidance maneuver gone wrong. A crew reacting before receiving orders. The history of maritime crises — from the Gulf of Tonkin to the **EP-3 incident** of 2001 between the U.S. and China — shows that it is often accidents that trigger major escalations, not deliberate policy decisions.

Taiwan now has sufficient data on Chinese tactics to adjust its protocols. But the accumulation of 29 gray zone incidents in six months means its coast guard forces are operating under high operational stress, with human and material resources that are not infinite. **Attrition** is a strategic factor that Beijing fully integrates into its calculation — even if Taipei prefers not to frame it that way.

*I have deep admiration for the resilience of the Taiwanese coast guard forces facing, ship by ship, a deliberate and sustained escalation. But I'm honest about the limits of that resilience. You can't indefinitely respond to every incursion with seven vessels and impeccable radio exchanges. At some point, something must change in the equation — either Taiwan's capacity, or the cost Beijing pays for its operations.*

## The Strategic Impasse: What the Pacific Alliance Must Do Now

### Reinforce Allied Presence or Accept Normalization

The question is no longer theoretical. With **29 gray zone operations** in six months around Taiwan, with incursions now documented at the **Pratas Islands**, **Kinmen**, **Itu Aba**, and in the **eastern EEZ**, the **Pacific Alliance** — the United States, Japan, Australia, the Philippines — must decide whether it accepts or contests the new normalcy that **Beijing** is imposing. Statements of principle are necessary but insufficient. Deterrence requires a visible, sustained, and consistent presence in the waters China illegally claims.

Experts from the **Center for Strategic and International Studies** have since early 2026 been recommending an increase in the frequency of American **Freedom of Navigation Operations**, closer coordination with Taiwan's coast guard, and the development of a fleet of **autonomous maritime drones** capable of continuously monitoring Chinese incursions without exposing human crews. These recommendations have not been fully adopted. Meanwhile, **Beijing** continues to accumulate its precedents.

### The Cost of Inaction, Measurable in Precedents

Every unchallenged incursion creates a precedent. Every precedent becomes a justification for the next. **The South China Sea** is being transformed not by a sudden decision, but by an accumulation of micro-decisions that no one was willing to stop in time. The logic of the **gray zone** is precisely designed to exploit the fact that each incident taken individually does not seem to justify a strong response — but that their sum represents a major strategic transformation.

Taiwan's **coast guard** knows this. **Taipei** knows it. The analysts at **ISW** document it with precision. What's missing is the political will of the democratic coalition to treat gray zone incursions with the same strategic urgency as direct military provocations — because, over the long term, their cumulative effects are just as devastating to the regional status quo.

*I often say I don't want to be alarmist. But honestly: 29 gray zone operations in six months, firsts crossed at Itu Aba and in the eastern EEZ, an allied response limited to declarations — at some point, the alarm is the only honest response. This isn't catastrophism. It's reading the data.*

## Conclusion: A Sea Changing Status Without Anyone Having Decided It

### What the Numbers Say That Declarations Dare Not

Thirty-nine incursions at Pratas since February 2025. Twenty-nine gray zone operations against Taiwan since the start of 2026. The first coordination between research vessels and coast guard vessels at Pratas. The first penetration of the prohibited waters at Itu Aba. The first interrogation of third-party merchant ships east of Taiwan. These figures don't lie: **the South China Sea is changing status**. Not legally — international law remains what it is, and China continues to violate it. But **politically and operationally**, Beijing is imposing a reality on the water that differs from the law.

Democratic governments tend to respond to this reality with statements of principle. These statements are necessary — they keep the normative framework alive. But they are not enough to reverse the dynamic on the water. The only thing that can alter Beijing's calculation is a real increase in the cost of its operations — diplomatic, economic, or through a more sustained and visible allied naval presence in the region.

### What the West Must Understand Before It's Too Late

The South China Sea is not the theater of a bilateral dispute between China and Taiwan. It is the laboratory where **Beijing tests the limits of the international order** that the United States has built since 1945. What happens **33 nautical miles south of Taiwan** will determine what is possible 33 nautical miles from the **Philippines**, **Japan**, **Australia**. If the democracies of the Pacific and their Atlantic allies fail to grasp this systemic challenge, they will watch the South China Sea become a **Chinese lake** — not through a sudden war, but through an accumulation of faits accomplis that no one was willing to stop in time.

*I have no certainty about what Beijing will ultimately do. Nobody does. What I know is that 29 gray zone operations in six months is an intensity without recent precedent. And that every new "first" — the penetration of Itu Aba, the survey of the eastern EEZ — is another brick in an edifice whose final shape we don't yet know. Uncertainty is not a reason to wait. It's a reason to act before the edifice is complete.*

*Here is what I think when I look at these maps: China's pressure on Taiwan is not an impulse — it's a program. A program with objectives, performance indicators, and strategic patience that few Western actors can genuinely replicate. We are in the third year of a sustained escalation. In five years, if nothing changes, the status quo of 2020 will be a memory.*

## Additional conclusion: What June 2026 Will Have Changed

### The Breaking of Precedents

Until **June 2026**, Chinese incursions into Taiwanese waters were documented primarily around **Pratas** and **Kinmen**. This month, **Itu Aba** and the **eastern EEZ** were crossed for the first time. This is not accidental escalation — it is a deliberate program of geographic expansion of gray zone operations. The next step may be the waters around **Orchid Island**, or a larger coordinated operation in the maritime corridors north of the Philippines. No one can predict with certainty.

What is certain is that **June 2026 will be cited as a turning point** in future analyses of the Sino-Taiwanese escalation — the month when several firsts were crossed simultaneously, when the frequency of incidents reached a record level, and when the international response, despite its rhetorical coherence, failed to reverse the operational trend. Taiwan expels. China returns. And every return claims a little more symbolic ground.

### The Sea Does Not Lie

AIS data, documented patrols, radio exchanges published by **Taipei** — all of this constitutes a factual corpus that does not depend on anyone's political declarations. The South China Sea is changing. Not in treaties, not in international law, but in the daily reality of the vessels, zones, and claims accumulating operation by operation. **The standoff of June 7, 2026** will remain in the textbooks not because it was extraordinary — but because it was perfectly ordinary in the new normalcy Beijing is methodically constructing.

**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

- [Al-Ahram / AFP — South China Sea standoff, June 7, 2026, 33 nautical miles south of Taiwan — June 7, 2026](https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/9/570308/World/International/Taiwan-coast-guard-says-its-vessels-in-;standoff;-.aspx)

- [Straits Times — Taiwan expels four Chinese ships from restricted waters — June 7, 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/taiwan-coast-guard-expels-chinese-ships-from-restricted-waters)

- [Straits Times — Renewed Pratas Islands standoff in South China Sea — June 5, 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-china-coast-guards-in-renewed-standoff-at-top-of-south-china-sea)

- [Asharq Al-Awsat — Taiwan: Chinese ships in Itu Aba / Taiping waters, first time — June 11, 2026](https://english.aawsat.com/world/5282801-taiwan-says-chinese-ships-entered-waters-disputed-south-china-sea-island)

### Secondary sources

- [Observing China / Zack Liao — Analysis of the June 6 operation, below the threshold of armed conflict — June 16, 2026](https://www.observingchina.org.uk/p/chinese-presence-east-of-taiwan)

- [ISW — China-Taiwan Update, 39 Pratas incursions since 2025, CCG data — June 5, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/china-taiwan-update-june-5-2026/)

- [Stars and Stripes — Pratas coast guard confrontation, 33-hour CCG-3501 standoff — May 26, 2026](https://www.stripes.com/branches/coast_guard/2026-05-26/taiwan-china-coast-guard-standoff-21782158.html)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-taiwan-expulse-pekin-revient-la-mer-de-chine-meridionale-comme-repetit