China has increased pressure on Taiwan, sending a record number of government vessels into waters around the island last month, according to statistics provided by the Taiwan Coast Guard.
According to Taiwan’s coast guard, there were 244 sightings of Chinese government vessels (vessels belonging to the China Coast Guard, scientific research institutes, etc.), more than four times the number in July 2025.
According to official statistics, this equates to about eight ships per day.
China is “escalating its efforts to bring the waters around Taiwan under its jurisdiction, and may be testing the compliance of foreign vessels with (Chinese) authorities in disputed waters,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said in an analysis earlier this month.
This number does not include Chinese fishing vessels in waters near islands off Taiwan, including Kinmen, Matsu and Pratas, the coast guard said. Adding these, the number almost doubles to 425 ships. By comparison, there were 233 Chinese vessels in July last year.
The number of Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy warships in waters surrounding Taiwan is also not included in the tally.
Taiwanese officials said last month that the activity represented a serious wartime risk and that Beijing may be rehearsing how to cut off Taiwan’s Pacific supply lines.
“If the situation escalates to a blockade, which would amount to a quasi-war, we have plans to work with the Navy to jointly protect Taiwan’s vital sea lanes,” the official told CNN.
Taiwan is an autonomous democracy, but the Chinese government has vowed to bring it under its control, even by force if necessary.
Earlier this summer, it was noted by analysts and Chinese state media that vessels belonging to the China Maritime Security Administration (MSA), a law enforcement agency rather than a military organization, were moving into Pacific waters east of Taiwan.
China’s state-run tabloid Global Times called the MSA ship’s move “a declaration of sovereignty with both legal significance and political signals.”
Taiwan’s coast guard said at the time that Chinese law enforcement vessels were issuing radio provocations to vessels heading toward Taiwan.
Taiwanese officials said last month that China Coast Guard vessels have so far not boarded commercial ships transiting waters around Taiwan, but that they are broadcasting questions about port entry and departure information to these ships to create a false impression that Beijing has jurisdiction over the waters around Taiwan.
Such broadcasts “already put pressure on these commercial ships,” but none of these ships changed course,” the official said.
Earlier this month, China sought to take advantage of a typhoon in the region to test the MSA’s control over ships in the region, according to the Institute for War Studies.
“MSA’s announcement stated that passing vessels must ‘strictly comply with traffic control requirements’ and ‘follow the instructions of maritime management authorities on the ground,'” the ISW report said.
And they are just the latest application of China’s gray zone tactics, the paper said.
China “will likely seek to expand its de facto control around Taiwan as much as possible through means other than war. War would erode Taiwan’s sovereignty, strain Taiwan’s resources, and create favorable conditions for future military operations against Taiwan.”
Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature on Thursday approved a plan to spend more than $7 billion on unmanned systems (including UAVs, USVs and UUVs) over the next six years.
The purchase plan shows that Taiwan has learned lessons from the armed conflicts in Ukraine and Iran to deter attacks by China while revitalizing its domestic drone industry.
Aiming to become a world leader, Taiwan has begun efforts to ramp up drone production across the island.
According to official trade data, Taiwan exported about 2.6 times more drones in the first seven months of this year than in all of 2025.
