Taiwan says China has sent more than 50 warships and coast guard ships across the first island chain

Taiwan's National Security Council secretary-general, Joseph Wu, said on the evening of 28 October that China's People's Liberation Army was sending several naval formations, including the carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier Liaoning, to train in waters east of the first island chain. Wu made the disclosure in a post on the social platform X, which carried a graphic showing the positions of the ships.

Wu said Taiwan was keeping a close watch on the movements. He argued that the deployments posed a threat to Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines at the same time, and said the intent behind them was obvious.

What the graphic shows

According to the Liberty Times, the graphic labels a Liaoning formation using the carrier's hull number, CV-16, and also marks far-seas training formations drawn from the PLA's Eastern, Northern and Southern Theater Commands. Those navy groups are shown alongside a large number of China Coast Guard, Maritime Safety Administration and other maritime law-enforcement vessels.

ETtoday and Formosa Television reported that the graphic counts more than 30 warships and nearly 20 coast guard and other government ships, for a total of more than 50 vessels spread along the first island chain. The activity it maps stretches across the East China Sea, the waters around the Taiwan Strait, the sea east of Japan and the area south-east of the Philippines.

Closer to Taiwan, the graphic places more than ten warships and coast guard ships in the waters off the island's east coast, ETtoday and Formosa Television reported, while several more warships are shown in the waters to Taiwan's south-west.

The reports did not include a response from Beijing, and Wu's figures, which come from Taiwan's own tracking, have not been independently confirmed. Formosa Television linked the timing to the run-up to Taiwan's local elections at the end of the year, describing the deployments as an escalation of Chinese pressure before the vote.

The carrier's route so far

The Liaoning group reached the Pacific after a voyage that took it through Philippine waters last week. Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said the carrier sailed with the destroyers Huainan, Anshan and Wuxi through the Mindoro Strait, the Sulu Sea and the Basilan Strait, and that the patrol vessel BRP Sarangani shadowed the group from the morning of 22 October until early the next day. He said the Chinese ships answered radio challenges by citing the right of innocent passage.

The two Philippine services have described that passage differently. Tarriela said Manila could not rule out that the transit was meant to intimidate the country amid diplomatic tensions with China, while the armed forces spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, Roy Vincent Trinidad, called it part of a periodic carrier training exercise the PLA Navy holds twice a year and said it was no cause for alarm.

Why it matters

Wu's disclosure puts a single picture on Chinese navy and coast guard activity that Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines have so far reported separately. By grouping the carrier group, theatre command task groups and law-enforcement ships on one map, Taipei is presenting the deployments as one coordinated effort along the first island chain rather than a set of unrelated voyages.