Webinar | Are China’s oceanic tensions entering a new phase?

China’s maritime pressure on Taiwan is increasingly extending beyond the Taiwan Strait, with a sustained presence in Taiwan’s eastern waters and along the First Island Chain. Since the  2025 Justice Mission exercises, Beijing has maintained operations around Taiwan, signaling readiness for a potential blockade. Its expanded presence and maritime law enforcement activities in Taiwan’s eastern waters following Japan-Philippines demarcation talks suggest a growing capacity to quarantine Taiwan. These activities are normalizing China’s maritime presence in contested waters, while strengthening its ability to exert control around Taiwan in a future crisis.

ACLED held a conversation featuring Laura Sorica, ACLED’s East Asia and Oceania Analyst, alongside Ratih Kabinawa, Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, to examine how China’s maritime strategy toward Taiwan is evolving. The discussion explored cross-strait tensions, defense strategies, and China and Taiwan’s responses, as well as the growing involvement of Japan and the Philippines and what this means for regional security. The webinar was moderated by Daniel Herrera Kelly, Associate Analysis Manager at ACLED, who has been involved in developing ACLED’s Taiwan Strait dashboard.

The webinar considered whether China’s expanding maritime presence signals a new phase in tensions around Taiwan, and what the growing connection between the Taiwan Strait and wider regional maritime competition could mean for security in the Western Pacific.