Taiwan reports 29 Chinese aircraft and seven warships in second PLA patrol in a week

Twenty-four Chinese aerial sorties crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line on Monday as Taiwan tracked an expanded Chinese military presence around the island, a fresh surge that sharpened concerns about Beijing’s pressure campaign. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said it detected 29 People’s Liberation Army aircraft, including fighter jets, operating in coordination with seven Chinese warships, describing the activity as the second Chinese “joint combat readiness patrol” near Taiwan within a week.^[2]

Taiwanese officials cast the operation as deliberate escalation rather than a response to events on the island. Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s secretary-general of the National Security Council and a veteran diplomat, linked the patrols to the period “shortly after the Beijing summit,” saying the PLA had conducted a “joint combat readiness patrol” around Taiwan for the second time in a week and describing the latest operation as unprovoked.^[1]

The move is the latest in a series of tense exchanges dating to May 16, when Taiwan asserted it is a sovereign, independent democracy amid rising US-China frictions over the island’s security. On May 17, President Lai Ching-te said Taiwan would not surrender its sovereignty or way of life under outside pressure, and on May 25 the island reported scrambling jets after another Chinese patrol near Taiwan.

Monday’s reported crossings of the median line—an unofficial buffer that has grown increasingly contested—again underscored how quickly routine monitoring can turn into a political flashpoint in the Taiwan Strait.^[2]