China’s unannounced Pacific drills massed more than 100 ships in ‘silent intimidation’ of Taiwan
Taipei says Beijing assembled its largest naval force in a year around Taiwan and across the western Pacific without announcing it, rehearsing attacks and a blockade while a submarine fired a missile; and then, just as quietly, began to pull back.
Key points
- China carried out a large, unannounced military exercise across the western Pacific and around Taiwan in early November 2026, massing more than 100 naval and coast guard vessels at its peak, according to a senior Taiwan security official. 1
- The drills included simulated attacks on other militaries and cities, including Taiwan’s, and a submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile fired from the Yellow Sea into the Chinese mainland, the official said. 1
- The deployment was larger than “Justice Mission 2025”, China’s last formally named exercise aimed at Taiwan nearly a year ago, and one of the largest Chinese naval deployments to date. 1
- The exercise drew on coordinated naval forces from China’s eastern, northern and southern theatre commands, suggesting rehearsals for a Taiwan blockade and for wider operations across the western Pacific. 1
- Taiwan’s defence minister, Wellington Koo, confirmed on 10 November that China was carrying out “area denial” drills in the western Pacific involving the Liaoning carrier group and other naval formations. Reuters / Taiwan Ministry of National Defense
Three readings of the same result
Same facts, different frames. Each reading names its outlets and what it emphasizes.
The Western reading, carried by Reuters and echoed in European capitals, treats the deployment as coercion by another name.
The emphasis falls on the absence of an announcement: a named exercise is a signal with a return address, while an unannounced one is pressure that leaves its target unsure whether a line has been crossed at all.
Key detail In this telling, the 100-plus hulls, the simulated attacks and the missile launch form a single message about what Beijing can do to Taiwan, delivered…
The East Asian reading is split down the strait itself, and both halves speak in their own words.
Taipei’s defence establishment has described the deployment in public, on the record and on social media: Koo naming the area-denial drills in parliament, Wu posting the vessel counts and the carrier group’s position east of the Philippines.
Key detail For the island, the story is a warning issued in daylight about a threat that arrived in silence.
The Global South reading, heard in the Gulf press that carried the account, starts not with the warships but with the water they sailed in.
The Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea carry the container traffic and the semiconductors on which economies from the Gulf to Africa to Latin America depend, and a blockade rehearsal is a trade threat before it is a military one.
Key detail What matters is the precedent: a great power rehearsing the closure of a global artery without announcing it.
Sources by lens: 1 West, 3 East, 1 Global South. See every source
The story
More than 100 warships, no announcement, no name
China carried out a large, unannounced military exercise across the western Pacific and around Taiwan in early November, in what Taipei calls a campaign of “silent intimidation” before major international meetings. A senior Taiwan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said China’s military and coast guard had at one point massed more than 100 vessels in the region early this month, with simulated attacks on other militaries and cities, including Taiwan’s.
“It is a silent exercise, and in effect, silent intimidation,” the official said, offering an image to explain the method: “This is like a robber hiding a gun in the pocket of a coat, with the muzzle pointed at the bank teller. It scares the teller into handing over the money, while avoiding setting off the alarm and bringing in a large police response.” The deployment was larger than “Justice Mission 2025”, China’s last formally named Taiwan drills, nearly a year ago.
The scale has eased this week: around 70 vessels were operating within the first island chain on Friday, according to two Taiwan security officials, though the theatre-command groups and the Liaoning carrier strike group remained east of the Philippines, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu said on X late on Thursday. China has not announced the exercise, and its defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The count, the carrier and the missile Taipei says it tracked
At its peak early this month, the Chinese deployment counted more than 100 military and coast guard vessels across the western Pacific and around Taiwan. By Friday the figure inside the first island chain, the arc of islands running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines, had fallen to around 70. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected 30 Chinese military aircraft sorties, eight naval vessels and three official ships around the island in the 24 hours to Friday morning.
The drills involved coordinated forces from China’s three theatre commands, a scale suggesting Beijing was rehearsing a Taiwan blockade and broader operations across the western Pacific, the official said. At the centre sat the aircraft carrier Liaoning and its strike group. Taiwan’s defence minister, Wellington Koo, confirmed as much on Tuesday, telling reporters at parliament that China “has indeed conducted area denial drills in the Western Pacific with the Liaoning carrier group and other naval training formations”. Area denial means keeping outside forces, above all the United States and its allies, from coming to Taipei’s aid.
During the latest drills, a Chinese submarine also launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from the Yellow Sea into the Chinese mainland, the senior Taiwan official said. And on Thursday, President Xi Jinping gave a major policy speech about Taiwan, urging peaceful “reunification” though making no mention of using force. Xi had said reunification must happen and history cannot be stopped, a message delivered the same week his navy was demonstrating the alternative. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force, said last month that the Liaoning’s training was an annual routine, not directed at any particular country.
silent intimidation
What Taipei cannot prove and Beijing will not say
The central uncertainty is whether this was one exercise at all. A 6 November assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the People’s Liberation Army could be conducting a major exercise simulating the isolation of Taiwan, with warships positioned to deter or prevent outside intervention; but it noted there was no confirmation that the movements were part of a unified operation. Beijing has announced nothing, so the outside world reads hull counts and flight tracks rather than an order of battle.
What exactly was counted is also unclear. The figure of more than 100 vessels covers the military and the coast guard together, and Taipei has not published a breakdown of warships against coast guard cutters and auxiliaries. The peak is dated only as “early this month”. And the submarine missile launch, reported by the same senior official who described the drills, has not been tied by any public evidence to the exercise itself: it may have been part of the drills, or a separately scheduled test that fell in the same window.
Above all, intent remains contested and unprovable from the outside. Taipei reads a deliberate campaign of intimidation timed to the diplomatic calendar. Beijing’s only words on the matter describe routine training. Between those two accounts there is no document, no statement and no named order to settle the question, and the governments watching have not yet said publicly how they read the deployment.
A blockade rehearsal that never announced itself
The exercise matters first because of what it rehearsed. A Taiwan blockade is the scenario Taipei fears most: an island that imports nearly all of its energy and much of its food, and that fabricates the advanced semiconductors the world runs on, cut off without a shot being fired. Forces from three theatre commands, a carrier east of the Philippines and simulated attacks on cities point at exactly that scenario; and at keeping American and allied forces out of the western Pacific.
It matters second because of the timing. Beijing hosts the APEC leaders’ summit in Shenzhen next week, where President Donald Trump is expected to meet President Xi Jinping for the third time this year, The region is in the middle of summit season, with Beijing confirming Premier Li Qiang for the ASEAN gathering in Manila, and the drills landed in the middle of it; pressure applied before the handshakes
Intimidation designed to stay below the alarm
The most interesting thing about the exercise is not its size but its silence. A named exercise triggers formal responses: notices to mariners, diplomatic protests, naval shadowing. An unnamed one delivers the same ships and the same rehearsal while denying every other government a clear event to respond to. The robber analogy offered by the Taiwan official captures the logic precisely, frighten the teller without tripping the alarm, and it explains why Taipei, rather than Beijing, ended up announcing the exercise to the world.
That inversion is the second half of the story. Taiwan has answered silence with transparency: the defence minister confirming the drills on the record, the security council chief posting vessel counts on X, the defence ministry publishing its daily tally of sorties and hulls. Beijing keeps the off-ramp open: the drawdown, the carrier group lingering east of the Philippines, and a presidential speech on peaceful reunification that said nothing of force.
What happens if the quiet deployments become the new normal
First, the threshold moves. If unannounced deployments of this scale become routine, Taiwan’s warning system must treat every surge as a possible blockade rehearsal, and every surge that turns out to be routine still costs the island vigilance, sorties and political attention. Second, the neighbours adapt: Japan, the Philippines and the United States coordinate more closely around the first island chain, and the waters east of the Philippines, where the Liaoning group now sits, become a standing watch rather than an occasional one. Third, the calendar fills with risk: Taiwan’s local elections at the end of the month, and the APEC handshake in Shenzhen, which Taipei will read as a pause or a reward.
And the deepest effect is the slow normalisation of a blockade rehearsal as a diplomatic instrument. Each silent exercise that passes without a crisis teaches every capital that the line can be approached this way, and each one without a response teaches Beijing the same. The danger is not a single deployment but the habit; the moment when 100 warships arriving unannounced stops being news, and starts being weather.
The APEC handshake, the count and the elections
Three things to watch. The vessel count: whether the number inside the first island chain keeps falling from 70, whether the Liaoning group leaves the waters east of the Philippines, and whether Taiwan’s daily reports show sorties returning to their usual level. The summit: the APEC meeting in Shenzhen next week, and the expected meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi, will show whether the deployment bought Beijing leverage or merely set the terms of a harder conversation. And the ballot box: Taiwan’s local elections at the end of November are the next date on which the pressure campaign will be judged; by its results, and by whether the ships, having arrived in silence, depart the same way.
What we agree on, and what remains open
Established
- China massed more than 100 naval and coast guard vessels around Taiwan and across the western Pacific in early November in an exercise it never announced, larger than its last formally named Taiwan drills, and Taipei describes the campaign as “silent intimidation”.
Contested
- On what Beijing intended; Taipei reads coercion timed to the APEC summit and its own local elections, Beijing calls the Liaoning’s training an annual routine, and analysts are split on whether the movements were one unified operation at all.
Still open
- The exact dates and full order of battle, whether the submarine missile launch was part of the exercise, how much of the 100-plus count was coast guard and auxiliary hulls rather than warships, or what order, if any, Beijing gave for the deployment.
What to watch
Questions, answered
According to a senior Taiwan security official, China massed more than 100 naval and coast guard vessels around Taiwan and across the western Pacific in a large exercise it never announced. The drills included simulated attacks on other militaries and cities, including Taiwan’s, and a submarine-launched missile test. Beijing has not confirmed the exercise.
Because the exercise had no name, no announcement and no published exercise zone, yet assembled one of the largest Chinese naval deployments to date. The Taiwan official said it was designed to frighten without triggering a crisis response, comparing it to a robber hiding a gun in a coat pocket; the threat is visible, the alarm never sounds.
The deployment was larger than “Justice Mission 2025”, China’s last formally named exercise aimed at Taiwan nearly a year ago. Unlike that exercise, this one was never named or announced, drew on coordinated forces from three theatre commands, and included a submarine missile launch.
The scale has already eased to around 70 vessels inside the first island chain, though the Liaoning carrier group remains east of the Philippines. Beijing hosts the APEC summit in Shenzhen next week, where Donald Trump is expected to meet Xi Jinping, so the vessel count in the coming days will show whether the easing continues.