Taiwan's security bureau says Chinese warplane incursions fell sharply this year as grey-zone pressure grew

Taiwan's National Security Bureau has told lawmakers that Chinese military aircraft made more than 1,450 incursions around Taiwan between January and September 2026, down from more than 3,000 in the same months of 2025. Over the same period the People's Liberation Army ran 28 joint combat readiness patrols with warships, compared with 31 a year earlier.

The figures appear in a written report the bureau prepared for the Legislative Yuan's Foreign and National Defense Committee, which is due to question security chiefs on Thursday 22 October. The United Daily News reported this part of the report on Wednesday 21 October, and Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao carried the same figures later that day, citing the Taipei paper.

The bureau does not read the lower count as lower pressure. It said the PLA keeps using other drills to test how Taiwan's forces respond, and that during this year's Han Kuang 42 exercise China sent air and naval units to the area to gather intelligence on Taiwanese military capabilities.

Its sharper warning concerns grey-zone activity at sea. According to the report, since June Beijing has stretched what it calls law-enforcement patrols by coast guard and other government ships into the waters east of Taiwan and into the western Pacific. The bureau said Beijing presented that step as a response to maritime boundary talks launched by Japan and the Philippines, and has paired the patrols with information campaigns meant to create an impression that China holds jurisdiction over those waters.

The report also says Chinese survey ships keep carrying out underwater survey work just outside Taiwan's contiguous zone. Chinese state media describe such voyages as marine environment research or the development of fishery resources. The bureau regards that framing as an attempt to make the surveys around Taiwan look routine, and counts the ships as part of a combined pressure campaign.

The bureau said its intelligence teams would keep tracking unusual Chinese movements through joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, coordinate the response with Taiwan's maritime agencies as it happens, and widen cooperation with international partners against grey-zone operations.

The report became public as a new patrol was under way. Taiwan's defence ministry said that in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on Wednesday 21 October it detected 29 PLA aircraft sorties, six PLA Navy ships and nine official Chinese ships around Taiwan. Of those sorties, 23 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the northern, central, southwestern and eastern parts of Taiwan's air defence identification zone. Taiwan responded with combat air patrol aircraft, navy ships and coastal missile systems.

The ministry had said on Tuesday that J-10, J-11, J-16 and JH-7 fighters, H-6 bombers, KJ-500 early warning aircraft and drones took part, together with warships, in a joint combat readiness patrol and a far-sea long voyage around the island. That patrol was reported by TaiwanDefence on 20 October.

The published accounts of the report give only nine-month totals. They do not break the incursion figures down by month or aircraft type, so they do not show when during the year the drop occurred or whether it reflects fewer large-scale drills or fewer routine flights.