Taiwan report says PLA units face a talent gap as China's coast guard pushes east of Taiwan

Frequent restructuring and reform have left the grassroots units of China's People's Liberation Army struggling with a gap in trained personnel, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said on 13 November. The finding appears in the council's written report on the situation in China during the third quarter of 2026, which it released that morning and which draws together the assessments of scholars and experts.

According to the report, the Central Military Commission, the body that commands China's armed forces, now has only two members left, Xi Jinping and Zhang Shengmin, after the fall of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. The council said the commission's standing meetings have continued to run as normal. The strain it described is lower down, where repeated adjustments have left units short of experienced people.

The council also pointed to a revised National Defence Mobilisation Law that China began enforcing in October. In its reading, the law lowers the bar for mobilisation by allowing it to be triggered whenever China's development interests are judged to be under threat. It also adds requisition rules that amount to buying property outright, which the council said are designed to speed up the switch from a peacetime to a wartime footing.

On naval power, the report said the shipyard in Dalian is accelerating work on China's first Type 004 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier as Beijing builds up a fleet able to operate far from its coast. It added that think tanks in the United States have answered with proposals for a strategy of imposing costs on China, including a network of anti-ship missiles fielded by several countries.

Closer to Taiwan, the council said the number of PLA aircraft sorties around the island has eased. China has instead used coast guard and maritime militia vessels to widen its activity in the waters east of Taiwan, which the council described as an attempt to create the appearance that Beijing holds jurisdiction there.

That eastern push has drawn scrutiny before. In mid-August a reconnaissance aircraft operated by the private Taiwanese training firm Apex Aviation spotted a three-ship Chinese group a little over 30 nautical miles off Hualien, according to Reuters reporting summarised by BBC News Chinese in October. The group was made up of the fishing boat Min Fu Ding Yu 07902, a coast guard ship and a research vessel. Two Taiwanese officials told Reuters the fishing boat was part of China's maritime militia, while Taiwan's coast guard said all the ships stayed outside restricted waters and were tracked throughout.

Taiwanese officials have also put figures on the militia. National Security Bureau director Tsai Ming-yen told lawmakers in April that the militia fleet runs to several thousand vessels and is still growing, and that it has taken part in almost every large PLA exercise in recent years. Coast guard chief Chang Chung-lung has said more than 100 Chinese vessels judged to have a militia background have appeared around Taiwan since 2023.

Defence minister Wellington Koo said in October that the coast guard is the lead agency for driving away militia or coast guard ships that cross the line, with the navy providing support under an existing agreement.

Beijing rejects the criticism. China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning claimed in October that China has an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf east of Taiwan. She also claimed that Chinese activity in those waters is entirely lawful.