Taiwan watches for large-scale PLA drills as peak season nears

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said on 15 October 2026 that it is closely monitoring the possibility of large-scale Chinese military exercises near the island as the People's Liberation Army's traditional November-to-December peak drill season approaches, according to reporting from the Taipei Times and Central News Agency.

At a routine news conference in Taipei, Colonel Pan Chun-kuang of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence said the ministry was using joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance means to track the latest PLA activities. Asked whether a large-scale exercise encircling Taiwan could take place in the coming peak window, he said the ministry would remain on high alert and respond appropriately.

Pan also said Beijing had recently used propaganda about its military activities to intensify cognitive warfare. The ministry viewed that pattern as behaviour that disrupts regional stability, CNA reported from the same briefing.

Officials were also asked about a naval fleet led by China's Liaoning aircraft carrier, which Beijing said began routine training in western Pacific waters on 14 October. Pan said the activity had drawn concern from countries in the region and put them on alert, and that Taiwan would keep monitoring it and take precautions. China's navy described the training as part of an annual plan to test and improve combat readiness and said it was not directed at any country or target.

USNI News, citing Japan's Joint Staff Office, reported that the Liaoning carrier strike group conducted aircraft launch and recovery drills in the Philippine Sea on 14 October before sailing toward the South China Sea, with Japan shadowing the formation. Earlier open-source tracking covered the same group's passage near Taiwan; the 15 October briefing adds Taipei's peak-season risk assessment and its warning on cognitive warfare.

In the daily PLA update covering the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on 15 October Taipei time, the ministry reported 15 PLA aircraft sorties, 10 People's Liberation Army Navy ships and seven official ships around Taiwan, Taiwan News and the Taipei Times said. Thirteen of the aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and entered Taiwan's northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defence identification zones. ROC forces responded with combat air patrol aircraft, navy ships and coastal missile systems.

The Taipei Times noted that China staged a large-scale exercise encircling Taiwan in August 2022 after then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, and that similar exercises became a regular occurrence with at least one held each year from 2023 to 2025. The newspaper said the PLA had not staged such an encirclement exercise so far in 2026, which is why reporters pressed the ministry on the approaching peak season.

Taken together, the briefing frames Taiwan's near-term watch list around three linked pressures: the calendar of PLA major drills, the Liaoning group's western Pacific operations, and what Taipei describes as expanded cognitive warfare accompanying those movements. The ministry's message was that joint ISR would stay on the problem through the November-December window even if no encirclement exercise has yet been announced.