Taiwan watches as China's PLA closes Yellow Sea waters for 47 days of live-fire drills

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has begun 47 consecutive days of live-fire military drills in the southern Yellow Sea off Jiangsu province, with the zone closed to shipping from Thursday, 15 October, until 30 November 2026, as Taiwan's military says it is watching for PLA pressure ahead of the peak drill season. Taiwanese media reports cited a navigation warning from the maritime safety administration in Yancheng.

The warning, issued on 13 October, says live firing will be carried out around the clock, from midnight to midnight every day, inside an area bounded by three points at roughly 34 degrees north and between 120.3 and 120.5 degrees east, and that vessels are barred from entering it. ETtoday said the zone lies broadly in nearshore Yellow Sea waters north of Yancheng city.

The new notice extends an earlier, much shorter one. The Yancheng office announced on 9 October that live firing would be held in part of the southern Yellow Sea from 7am on 16 October to 6pm on 17 October. Mirror Media and CTi News reported that the latest warning stretches the closure to the end of November.

It follows a cluster of navigation warnings that China issued around President Lai Ching-te's National Day speech on 10 October, covering live firing or military training in five sea areas in the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas between 12 and 17 October.

Taiwanese officials have so far played those drills down. Yam News reported that Defence Minister Wellington Koo had said a preliminary assessment found they were mainly firing practice by China's coastal artillery and air defence units, and that Mainland Affairs Council deputy head Liang Wen-chieh repeated that view at a news conference on Thursday. Liang said Taiwan would still watch closely and plan for the worst, and would not guess whether the drills were aimed at Lai's speech.

The same report said only the East China Sea notice issued by the Wenzhou maritime office had any bearing on Taiwan, with the other firing zones far away, and that South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, which all have maritime disputes with China, had not commented publicly. It also noted that the Chinese state broadcaster's military channel posted the East China Sea notice on the morning of 10 October, about an hour and a half before Lai began speaking.

CTi News cited a military commentary account on Chinese social media as saying that live-fire closures in the Yellow Sea have usually lasted only a few days, and that keeping one in force for 47 days would test ammunition supply, equipment and the rotation of personnel. The account also said a closure of that length would disrupt merchant and fishing traffic in the area.

Taiwan's defence ministry said on Thursday that it was watching PLA activity closely as China's November to December peak training season approaches. Pan Chun-kuang, an official from the General Staff's intelligence office, told reporters that China had recently used publicity about its military activities to step up cognitive warfare, which he called behaviour that disrupts regional stability.

Asked about a PLA Navy group led by the aircraft carrier Liaoning, which began drills in the western Pacific on Wednesday, Pan said the activity had put countries in the region on alert. The PLA Navy has said those drills are not directed at any country or target. CTi News noted that Japan's defence ministry has scheduled the Japan-US Keen Sword 27 exercise for 19 to 29 October.

China staged a large-scale exercise encircling Taiwan in August 2022 and has held at least one such exercise every year from 2023 to 2025, Focus Taiwan noted, but it has not held one so far in 2026.