NARRATIVE: China tightens its grip on eastern Taiwan — the strategy of the silent embrace

Introduction: when normalization becomes the weapon

Eastern Taiwan: the flank Beijing wanted to control

In the geography of tensions between China and Taiwan, the conversation often centers on the Taiwan Strait — that 180-kilometer stretch of water separating the island from the mainland, where American forces have regularly sailed to signal their presence. But since June 1, 2026, it is eastern Taiwan that has become the new theater of a Chinese strategy of formidable subtlety: coast guard vessels of the People's Republic of China have been patrolling almost continuously in these waters, according to maritime tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, analyzed and published by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its China-Taiwan Update of June 26, 2026.

This eastern flank is strategically crucial. While the Taiwan Strait is the natural route for an amphibious invasion from the mainland, the waters east of the island are Taiwan's escape route: it is through them that the United States and its allies could intervene in case of conflict, deploying aircraft carriers from the Pacific. Controlling eastern Taiwan's waters, even progressively and through administrative means, is a first-order strategic priority for Beijing.

Three weeks of continuous patrols: a first

For more than three weeks starting June 1, 2026, vessels of the China Coast Guard (CCG) maintained a near-continuous presence east of Taiwan. This is not a spectacular operation with strikes or dramatic declarations. It is the opposite: a calm, regular, seemingly administrative presence. Between June 16 and 18, the research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 from the PRC Ministry of Natural Resources conducted a "marine environment survey" in those same waters. A marine environment survey. In waters that Taiwan regards as falling under its own exclusive economic zone.

On June 20, 2026, the social media account Yuyuan Tantian — affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV and known for announcing Beijing's intentions before they are officially stated — claimed that these activities suggested the PRC might now consider these waters as "coastal waters close to China." Chinese coastal waters. East of Taiwan.

The Kinmen model: understanding the strategy through its precedents

Kinmen, the laboratory of progressive coercion

To understand what is happening east of Taiwan, one must know the history of Kinmen. This small Taiwanese island, just a few kilometers from the Chinese coast, has been the theater of a progressive strategy Beijing has implemented since 2024: continuous deployments of the CCG, patrols in waters Taiwan considers its own, progressive normalization of a presence that, repeated long enough, ultimately becomes a fait accompli. This model is now designated as the "Kinmen model."

It was precisely Yuyuan Tantian that introduced this concept in 2024. And it is the same account that, in June 2026, claims this model now applies to Taiwan's eastern waters. The ISW characterizes this as a strategy aimed at eroding Taiwanese sovereignty and establishing the PRC as the sole legitimate guardian of Chinese maritime boundaries — including those surrounding Taiwan and its peripheral islands.

The mechanics of progressive erosion

The strength of this strategy lies in its gradualism. It triggers no military response because at each individual step, no act is grave enough to justify escalation. A coast guard patrol is a civilian activity. An environmental survey is a scientific activity. A social media claim is an opinion. But the accumulation of these acts, over months and years, modifies the de facto status quo without ever crossing the threshold that would trigger a formal response.

This is what the ISW rightly calls a strategy of "normalizing control." Each repeated patrol becomes a norm. Each scientific survey establishes a precedent. Each claim by Yuyuan Tantian tests international reaction before official declarations follow. If no one responds strongly to each individual act, the sum of these acts ultimately constitutes customary law that Beijing then claims to codify.

The Ministry of Transport's special operation: a revealing coordination

From June 6 to 10: a maritime law enforcement operation

Simultaneously with the CCG patrols, the PRC Ministry of Transport conducted a "special maritime law enforcement operation" east of Taiwan from June 6 to 10, 2026. This operation was conducted in response to efforts by Japan and the Philippines to delimit their respective exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims, which overlap in this area.

Beijing's logic is revealing: Philippine and Japanese EEZ claims also overlap with the EEZ claims of both the PRC and Taiwan. China has rejected the idea of territorial delimitation that would not include all claimants — in other words, a delimitation without China is illegitimate according to Beijing. And since Taiwan is considered part of China by Beijing, its own maritime claims are absorbed into Chinese claims.

The Philippines-Japan-China triangulation in eastern waters

This triangulation between Manila, Tokyo, and Beijing in waters east of Taiwan is a symptom of a broader geopolitical competition. Japan and the Philippines — two American allies in the region — seek to formalize and secure their legitimate maritime claims. Beijing seeks to block this process, which it perceives as an attempt to isolate China from waters it considers its own.

For Taiwan, caught between these actors, the situation is delicate. Its own maritime claims in this zone are similar to Chinese claims (both inherit the same historical maps), creating a paradoxical situation: Taiwan and China often claim the same waters, for shared historical reasons, but within radically opposed political frameworks. Beijing exploits this ambiguity to advance its own position.

The strategic consequences: freeing the PLAN for long-range missions

The CCG frees the military navy

The CCG's presence east of Taiwan has a strategic dimension the ISW highlights with precision: if coast guard vessels take charge of surveillance of the immediate waters around Taiwan — including the Taiwan Strait during major exercises — assets of the PLAN (PRC military navy) are freed for longer-range missions. In other words, the extension of CCG jurisdiction is not only a tool of political coercion: it is also a military force multiplier.

A PLAN relieved of close surveillance around Taiwan can devote more assets to power projection beyond the first island chain — toward the central Pacific, toward maritime routes toward Australia, toward the operating zones of long-range submarines. This not only normalizes Chinese presence around Taiwan but enhances China's global power projection capability.

The implication for Taiwan's defense

An American diplomat, quoted by Reuters on July 2, 2026, stated that Taiwan needs "hornet's nest" drones to deter conflict. This formula — suggesting defense by swarms of autonomous drones capable of imposing prohibitive costs on an invasion force — says something important about the nature of the threat as perceived by Washington.

The CCG strategy east of Taiwan is not separate from the question of the island's military defense. It is its prelude. By normalizing its presence in eastern waters, Beijing is preparing an environment in which, in case of conflict, American forces arriving from the east would encounter an already established Chinese presence, circumvented legal precedents, communication lines already partially disrupted. The CCG strategy is the civilian phase of a long-term military preparation.

The international response: allies on alert, but fragmented response

Washington, Tokyo, Canberra: growing vigilance

The United States, Japan, and Australia are following the movements of the CCG in Taiwanese waters with heightened attention. Recent reports from the ISW and allied intelligence services systematically document these developments. The concrete response includes regular American freedom of navigation patrols in the Taiwan Strait, joint military exercises with Taipei, and increased investment in Taiwanese defensive capabilities.

The American diplomat speaking of "hornet's nest drones" reflects a strategic thinking that is evolving. Rather than betting exclusively on conventional superiority — costly and difficult to maintain 10,000 km from the American mainland — Washington is pushing Taiwan toward asymmetric defense, based on decentralized systems that are difficult to destroy wholesale and capable of imposing high costs on any aggressor.

What regional allies can — and cannot — do

The Philippines are in a particularly delicate position. Their own maritime territory is disputed by China in the South China Sea — Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly Islands, the Paracels. They are living a less advanced version of what Taiwan is experiencing east of its territory. Coordination between Manila, Tokyo, and Washington on these files is growing, but it runs into economic reality: these countries have considerable trade relations with China that they cannot risk compromising lightly.

This is the fundamental dilemma for democracies facing Beijing's strategy of progressive coercion: respond too forcefully risks escalation and economic cost; respond too softly validates the erosion strategy. There is no ideal response. What is certain is that the absence of response is itself a choice — and a choice whose consequences accumulate over time.

The Ukrainian context: lessons Taiwan cannot ignore

What the war in Ukraine teaches about progressive coercion

There is a parallel that Taiwan — and its allies — cannot afford to ignore: Russia also used a strategy of progressive coercion against Ukraine before 2022. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a progressive occupation first presented as the exercise of peaceful rights. Forces in the Donbas since 2014 were "local separatists" according to Moscow, not a Russian military operation. Progressive normalization, small steps, the absence of a decisive democratic response — all of this created the conditions for the full invasion of 2022.

The CCG strategy east of Taiwan in 2026 presents troubling similarities to Russia's strategy in Ukraine before 2022. Not identical — contexts differ, tools differ, timescales differ. But the underlying logic is common: normalize a presence, erode the legitimacy of the adversary's sovereignty, create legal and operational faits accomplis, and let time do its work.

Why the analogy has its limits

However, one must resist drawing the analogy too quickly. Taiwan is not Ukraine, and China is not Russia in its methods. China is a global economic power, far more integrated into the international economy than Russia was in 2022. The costs of a conflict would be catastrophic for the global economy, creating restraining forces that Russia did not have to weigh as heavily.

Moreover, Taiwan has invested significantly in its defense and deterrence — more so than Ukraine had done between 2014 and 2022. Its ties with the United States, Japan, and other allies are more institutionalized. The situation is serious, but not comparable term for term with that of Ukraine before the invasion. These distinctions matter.

The semiconductor question: why Taiwan is the stake of the century

TSMC and the global dependency

One cannot speak of Taiwan in 2026 without addressing TSMC — the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which produces the bulk of the world's most advanced semiconductors. These chips are in the phones, cars, weapons systems, data centers, and medical equipment of the entire planet. The global dependency on Taiwanese semiconductor production is one of the most important structural vulnerabilities of the global economy.

For Beijing, this dependency is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it creates an extraordinary strategic card: controlling Taiwan potentially means controlling the global supply of advanced chips, and therefore having an economic coercion lever over all developed economies. On the other, any disruption of Taiwanese production — through conflict, even local — would inflict considerable economic damage on China itself, whose industry depends massively on Taiwanese chips.

The race for alternatives: Intel, Samsung, and the limits of repositioning

The United States, Europe, and Japan have invested massively since 2022 to build alternatives to Taiwanese production: the American CHIPS Act, the European Chips Act, Japanese investments in advanced fabrication plants. But these efforts take years to bear fruit. In 2026, TSMC remains irreplaceable for the most advanced technology nodes.

This economic reality is one of the factors restraining Beijing from direct military action — at least for now. But the CCG strategy does not need an invasion to create strategic value for Beijing. It creates pressure, doubt, instability. And in an environment of instability, foreign investment in Taiwan — including in semiconductors — becomes riskier, costlier, less attractive. Economic erosion can precede military erosion.

International law: the limits of a system under pressure

UNCLOS and its divergent interpretations

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ratified by China but applied by it selectively, is at the heart of the maritime dispute around Taiwan. The PRC asserts historic rights over the South China Sea and adjacent waters that go beyond what UNCLOS recognizes for any coastal state. These claims were rejected by an international arbitral tribunal in 2016 in the case brought by the Philippines against China — a rejection that Beijing simply ignored.

The assertion that waters east of Taiwan constitute "coastal waters close to China" is a legal claim with no basis in existing international law. It is carried by a social media account, not an official declaration — precisely because formally stated, it would immediately face international opposition. The strategy is to test informally first, normalize, and officialize later once the ground reality has changed.

The erosion of the international maritime order

What is happening east of Taiwan in June 2026 is part of a broader pattern of erosion of the international maritime order that China has been pursuing for a decade. The artificial islands in the South China Sea, regular provocations in Japanese waters, repeated operations in the Philippines' EEZ: each episode is presented as a local bilateral matter, but the whole amounts to a systemic challenge to international rules.

For the democracies that built and maintained the international maritime order — the United States, Japan, Australia, Europe — the response is not only military. It is also legal and diplomatic: strengthening institutions, supporting countries that challenge Chinese claims before international tribunals, systematically documenting violations to build a record of accountability. This long-term work is less spectacular than an aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait. But it is equally necessary.

Taiwan's response: resilience and adaptation

Taipei between vigilance and normalcy

Taiwan has lived for decades under the threat of a power that refuses to recognize its existence. Its population has developed remarkable resilience in the face of this permanent pressure — a capacity to maintain a normal life, a dynamic economy, and a vibrant democracy despite the existential risk that looms. This resilience is not complacency: it is the result of a deep cultural and institutional adaptation to a situation that would paralyze an outside observer.

Facing the CCG strategy, the Taiwanese government responds through several levers: systematic documentation of violations, maintenance of its own maritime patrols, regular communication with allies, and accelerated development of asymmetric defense capabilities. Taipei cannot respond to every coast guard intrusion with a military confrontation — that would be precisely the trap Beijing may be setting. It responds through institutional persistence and the progressive construction of an international record.

Investments in asymmetric defense

Taiwan has announced and implemented since 2021 a program to strengthen its asymmetric defense: Harpoon and HF-2E anti-ship missiles, surveillance and attack drones, mobile coastal systems difficult to target. These systems are designed for a specific scenario: imposing prohibitive costs on an amphibious invasion force during the first hours and days of a conflict, while waiting for allied reinforcements to arrive.

The concept of the "hornet's nest" mentioned by the American diplomat fits this logic. Swarms of autonomous drones, low-cost, difficult to intercept in mass, capable of striking invasion vessels with precision: this is the asymmetric response to a superior amphibious power. Taiwan is also drawing lessons from the war in Ukraine — specifically from Ukrainian effectiveness in using drones to challenge a conventionally superior army.

The ISW analysis: an unambiguous verdict

The ISW and systematic documentation

The Institute for the Study of War, known for its rigorous analysis of the Ukrainian conflict, has extended its analytical coverage to China and Taiwan. Its China-Taiwan Update of June 26, 2026 is precise in its formulations and methodical in its documentation. It does not speculate on unproven intentions. It documents facts — the CCG patrols, the Xiang Yang Hong 22 operations, the assertions of Yuyuan Tantian — and analyzes their strategic implications with caution.

The ISW's conclusion is that Beijing seeks to alter the status quo in the western Pacific by regularly extending its law enforcement and research activity. This formulation — "alter the status quo" — is important: it implies that what is happening is not a response to external provocations, but a deliberate initiative to change baseline conditions.

What the documentation reveals: a conscious, coordinated strategy

The coordination between the various Chinese agencies involved in these operations — the CCG, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Transport, and the communication machine of Yuyuan Tantian — suggests a deliberate strategy, planned at the highest level, and executed with consistency over several weeks. This is not a series of individual incidents. It is a campaign.

This multi-ministerial coordination, within the PRC's institutional architecture, can only be explained by a decision at the Politburo or Standing Committee level. These are operations authorized by Xi Jinping and his immediate circle. This says something about China's strategic intentions toward Taiwan in 2026: they are not accidental, not the work of an uncontrolled bureaucracy. They are deliberate.

The silence of the international community: the trap of normalization

When the habitual becomes invisible

One of the most formidable effects of the strategy of progressive normalization is its impact on international media and political attention. The first CCG patrols east of Taiwan generated reports. If they repeat every week for six months, they become ordinary news — too ordinary for the front page, too repetitive to provoke outrage. Banalization is a strategic victory for Beijing.

It is the same mechanism that played out in the South China Sea: the first artificial island constructions were documented and denounced. Subsequent ones were reported. The latest have become habitual backdrops. Today, China exercises de facto control over maritime territories that do not legally belong to it, and the world has largely grown accustomed to it.

The responsibility of the media and analysts

There is a responsibility for the media and analysts not to let Beijing's strategy benefit from attention fatigue. Documenting systematically, analyzing cumulative changes, relating individual acts within a coherent trend: this is the work of the ISW, and it is the work that serious journalism must continue to do. Every CCG patrol east of Taiwan deserves to be noted — not because it is in itself extraordinary, but because it adds to a whole that, by itself, is extraordinary.

Beijing's information strategy — using Yuyuan Tantian to test reactions before official declarations, presenting military operations under civilian cover — deserves a precise analytical response. Neither alarmism, nor minimization. Rigorous documentation is the best weapon against the normalization of breaches of international order.

The Ukrainian lesson for Taiwan: do not wait until it is obvious

What Ukraine would have wanted to know before 2022

In retrospect, clear signals indicated that a full-scale invasion was possible before February 24, 2022: the annexation of Crimea in 2014, forces in the Donbas since 2014, massive military exercises on the border, troop buildups documented by satellites. The West was slow to respond decisively. Ukraine paid for that delay at a terrible price.

For Taiwan, the lesson is explicit: waiting until the threat is obvious before responding strongly is often waiting too long. The CCG patrols east of the island, the operations of the Xiang Yang Hong 22, the assertions of Yuyuan Tantian: these are signals. They may precede an escalation, or they may not. We do not know. What we do know is that ignoring signals is a strategy that has already failed in a similar context.

The hope of a coordinated democratic response

There are, however, reasons to hope that the response to Chinese maneuvering around Taiwan will be better than the initial response to Russian maneuvering around Ukraine. The United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, and others have drawn lessons from the partial deterrence failure of 2022. Investments in Taiwan's defense are more significant than they were for Ukraine in 2020–2021. Public commitment is clearer.

This is not a guarantee. Beijing's strategy is patient, and democracies struggle to maintain sustained attention on progressive threats. But in June 2026, the rigorous documentation by the ISW, the signals from the American diplomat about "hornet's nests," and the growing coverage of this strategy in serious media suggest that the international strategic community has its eyes open. That is not enough. But it is necessary.

Conclusion: the silent embrace and what can still answer it

What the June 2026 patrols mean for the future

The near-continuous CCG patrols east of Taiwan since June 1, 2026, the research vessel from June 16 to 18, the assertions of Yuyuan Tantian on "coastal waters close to China": taken together, these elements document a deliberate strategy of progressive encirclement that China hopes will alter the status quo without ever crossing the threshold of a military response. It is a brilliant, patient, and profoundly dangerous strategy.

The world that watched Russia progressively annex Ukrainian territories since 2014 before the full invasion of 2022 bears a particular responsibility in the face of this strategy. It can choose to respond now, to document, to resist normalization, to strengthen Taiwan's defensive capabilities, and to maintain a clear maritime presence in these waters. Or it can watch the patrols normalize, the eastern waters become Chinese in fact before becoming so in law, and wait until it is too late for resistance to be anything other than catastrophically costly.

What Taiwan deserves from the West

Taiwan is a democracy. It chose its system of governance freely, it defends it freely, and it lives under the threat of an authoritarian regime that denies it. It deserves from the West a coherent response — not necessarily immediate military action, but strategically solid, documented, committed. It deserves that the CCG's patrols in its eastern waters be denounced every time they occur, not only during the first week.

The silent embrace that Beijing is tightening around eastern Taiwan since June 1, 2026 deserves a response that is not silent. This narrative is part of that response — modest, journalistic, insufficient on its own. But every time a journalist, an analyst, a government chooses to name what is happening, they refuse the normalization. And refusing normalization is, at this moment, a necessary political act.

Conclusion final: democracy is not passive

Responding through presence and clarity

The response to Beijing's strategy is not a symmetric response — coast guard against coast guard, research vessels against research vessels. It is a response that combines maintained American and allied military presence, reinforcement of Taiwanese capabilities, systematic international condemnation of violations, and clear political support for Taiwanese institutions. It is a multi-level response, coherent over time, not reactive to each individual incident.

Democracies are poorly equipped for progressive strategies because they function through short electoral cycles and reactions to immediate news. China plays long; democracies tend to play short. Breaking this temporal asymmetry — developing long-term strategies against progressive coercion — is one of the most important institutional challenges democracies must address in the face of Beijing.

The Pacific in 2026: a democracy under siege and a world that must choose

In June 2026, while Russia exhausts itself on the Ukrainian plains, China quietly tightens its grip on waters east of Taiwan. These two theaters are linked — not through direct coordination between Moscow and Beijing, but through the common logic of challenging the liberal international order. If Russia loses this war, that sends a signal to Beijing. If Ukraine is abandoned, that sends another. And Taiwan, in both cases, watches and draws its own conclusions.

The world must choose. Not between war and peace — nobody wants war. Between clarity and passive complicity. Between naming what is happening and letting normalization do its work. In June 2026, the waters east of Taiwan pose this question to the entire world. The answer has not yet been written.

Conclusion ultimate: the waters east of Taiwan, mirror of the world we want

A civilizational choice

Ultimately, what these coast guard patrols east of Taiwan pose is a civilizational question: what world order do we want? An order where authoritarian powers can progressively erode the sovereignty of democracies through normalization, without ever crossing the threshold of formal war, until these democracies are encircled in fact? Or an order where rules are defended, violations denounced, and democracies supported in their resistance to this progressive erosion?

This is not rhetoric. It is the defining structural choice of international politics in 2026. Ukraine is defending that order on the ground. Taiwan is defending it in its eastern waters and on its shores. And somewhere between the decisions of democratic governments, the analyses of the ISW, the reporting of journalists who refuse normalization, and the investments in defenses that deter authoritarian adventurism — somewhere in all of that, the future of the world we leave our children is being decided.

What June 2026 will be remembered for

History may remember June 2026 as a month of signals: the Belarusian relays disabled under Ukrainian ultimatum, Russian losses accumulating at an unsustainable rate, the American shift proclaimed by Macron at the G7, and Chinese coast guard vessels beginning to patrol continuously east of Taiwan. These signals all point in directions that democracies cannot afford to ignore.

The war of shadows and the war at sea. The war of drones and the war of legal precedents. The war of armies and the war of narratives. June 2026 is the month when all these fronts activated simultaneously. And Taiwan, standing in the east of its disputed waters, tells the world: you have a choice. Act accordingly.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My positions and stated biases

I am Maxime Marquette, columnist. I believe that China represents the greatest long-term threat to the liberal international order, particularly in its relationship with Taiwan. I am pro-democracy, explicitly. These positions inform my analysis. I make no claim to neutrality on a conflict between a democracy and an authoritarian regime.

The facts I report in this narrative are all drawn from identified sources: the ISW China-Taiwan Update of June 26, 2026, the Starboard Maritime Intelligence data cited by the ISW, the assertions of Yuyuan Tantian documented by the ISW, and the statement by the American diplomat reported by Reuters on July 2, 2026. I have not invented testimonies or presented inferences as certainties.

What I do not know

I do not know whether the CCG strategy east of Taiwan precedes a planned invasion or whether it is a long-term coercion strategy with no immediate invasion plan. I do not know the date on which Xi Jinping might decide to escalate, if ever he does. These uncertainties are fundamental and I maintain them rather than erasing them with manufactured certainties. Analytical caution in the face of these questions is not intellectual cowardice: it is the only possible honesty.

My method: document verifiable facts, analyze trends rigorously, name uncertainties, and maintain a long-term strategic perspective without yielding to alarmism or minimization. In a field saturated with both, this discipline is a conscious editorial choice.

Sources

Primary sources

Institute for the Study of War — China & Taiwan Update, June 26, 2026

Mathrubhumi — Taiwan-China military activity and ADIZ incursions — 2026

Velina Tchakarova — The Encirclement of Taiwan and the geopolitical stakes — 2026

Secondary sources

South China Morning Post — South China Sea coverage — 2026

The Print — Scarborough Shoal and China-Philippines disputes — 2026

Reuters — Taiwan needs 'hornet's nest' drones to deter conflict — July 2, 2026