Former US Pacific commander Blair tells Taiwan to rank China's grey-zone moves, not chase every one

Taiwan should track every Chinese warship, government vessel and aircraft around the island, but it should not scramble against each one the moment it is detected, retired US Navy Admiral Dennis Blair told a maritime security conference in Taipei on Wednesday, 14 October 2026. Speaking by video in the keynote of the Ocean Affairs Council's 2026 International Conference on Sea Lane Security, Blair said China holds a numerical edge in naval and air forces, so Taiwan should set priorities through threat assessment rather than rushing to respond to every contact, the Liberty Times reported.

Blair compared Beijing's grey-zone pressure around Taiwan to a medieval siege of a castle, the newspaper said. China is trying to project overwhelming national strength to intimidate and coerce Taiwan, he argued, but this is not wartime and the waters and airspace of the Taiwan Strait do not belong to Taiwan alone, so a siege is hard to make work and instead harms regional peace and cross-strait stability.

Know every hull, then triage

His first recommendation was close monitoring of China's coastal activity. Taiwan should use technology and intelligence to identify each Chinese warship, government ship, fishing boat and merchant vessel, as well as Chinese military and civilian aircraft, particularly when they enter Taiwan's air defence identification zone. With that picture, he said, Taiwan could catch and stop Chinese boats that cross lines to fish illegally or pollute, keep watching People's Liberation Army ships and aircraft, and launch aircraft to warn them off as soon as they close on Taiwan's territorial sea or airspace, in case they move to hostile action.

Blair commanded US Pacific Command before retiring from the navy in 2002 after 34 years of service, most of it in the Pacific, and later served as US Director of National Intelligence. The Ocean Affairs Council said he has since spent five straight years in Taiwan as a senior adviser to the annual Han Kuang exercise. In a Foreign Affairs essay in September 2026 with Holmes Liao, he argued that Taiwan's aim in the strait should be sea denial, built on more and smaller ships tied to sensors, drones and missiles.

Security council calls for partners

Opening the conference, National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Lii Wen said Taiwan is willing to put more resources into its own defence and is acting to harden its maritime resilience, but that sea-lane security cannot be delivered by any single government agency and needs government, industry and international partners, the Central News Agency reported. He said China uses its coast guard, research ships, maritime militia, roll-on roll-off cargo ships and sand dredgers in grey-zone activity under the banner of law enforcement.

Lii said Taiwan set up a new interagency mechanism in June that gives merchant ships accurate information and advises them to refuse illegal demands from China Coast Guard vessels, and that tabletop exercises and live Han Kuang drills show its resolve. He said Taiwan could learn from the Philippines' policy of publicly exposing maritime coercion, and that partners could strengthen early warning through shared maritime domain awareness, uncrewed systems and non-lethal tools. He summed up Taiwan's priorities as TENACITY: transport and communications, energy resilience, navy and coast guard coordination, maritime domain awareness, convoys and escorts, insurance, transshipment plans and international support.

The council said the conference dates to the mid-1980s, with Taiwan a founding member among 13 countries including the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and the Philippines. The defence and foreign ministries co-hosted it in 2012 before the council revived it in 2024 as a biennial event. Its 2026 line-up also included retired Japanese Admiral Takei Tomohisa and retired Royal Navy Vice Admiral Duncan Potts, with panels on grey-zone harassment, maritime quarantine and resilience.