Eroding the status quo, one patrol at a time: China’s June 2026 law enforcement operations
In January this year, CSRI published its brief ”Taiwan’s Contiguous Zone: Why it matters and how it is under threat”. At the time, China had just concluded its Justice Mission 2025 exercises around Taiwan – with an unprecedented number of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels passing into the “restricted waters” around Taiwan’s main island. As predicted, since then we have seen a renewed push by Beijing to normalise its presence in and around Taiwan’s waters. These activities are not only designed to drain Taiwan’s defensive resources, but also to directly challenge the maritime administration that Taiwan has exercised for decades under the Cross-Strait status quo.
This briefing gives an overview of China’s recent “Special Maritime Traffic Law Enforcement Operation” routing around Taiwan’s East coast. While Beijing claimed the exercises were targeted at Japan and the Philippines (who have just started negotiations on resolving disputes over their overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones), the exercises also set a series of new precedents in Beijing’s attempts to assert control over the waters around Taiwan – with major implications for commercial and international shipping.
Key Points:
(1) China’s “inspection” operations proceed en-masse for the first time: Beijing has previously announced “inspection” patrols as part of large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, including in April 2023, April 2025 and the recent Justice Mission exercises. However, the scope and nature of these operations was never clear, with little meaningful impact on shipping reported. This time, Beijing claims to have actively “inspected” 198 vessels passing through waters off Taiwan’s east coast. Inspections took place through remote verification – such as checking vessel navigation equipment and identification codes – rather than stopping or boarding. Nonetheless, China’s willingness to assert its jurisdiction in the waters around Taiwan will reinforce fears of a future ‘quarantine’ or law enforcement operation targeting and disrupting Taiwan’s critical supply chains.
(2) International shipping directly impacted by Beijing’s grey-zone campaign for the first time: In addition to the remote inspections conducted, three vessels from Singapore, Benin and Liberia were hailed by China, receiving direct radio communication from Chinese vessels claiming to be asserting authority in the waters and demanding information about their sailing. The prospect of China claiming jurisdiction in the waters East of Taiwan will be both confusing and alarming for commercial shipping in the region, with fears that freedom of navigation will be further challenged in some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
(3) Chinese official vessels enter Taiwan’s restricted waters again, setting new precedents: According to Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration, Chinese vessels taking part in the exercise entered Taiwan’s ‘restricted waters’ near the southern tip of Taiwan’s main island. This is the fourth major incident in June involving the Chinese Coast Guard operating in Taiwan’s restricted waters. Vessels approached restricted waters around Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen on June the 3rd, and Pratas Island on June the 5th. Most alarmingly, this month also saw the first incursion into the restricted waters around Taiwan’s remote Taiping Island (Itu Aba) in the South China Sea on the 11th of June. June’s escalations can be seen as part of China’s ongoing campaign to undermine the status quo and to challenge Taiwan’s control of its waters.
Why does this matter?
Beijing’s ‘grey-zone’ strategy aims to slice away at the Cross-Strait status quo, normalising China’s claims over both Taiwan and international waters. A Taiwanese Ministry of National Defence official – referencing the daily presence of an average of 40-50 Chinese vessels in the East and South China Seas – has warned that China’s presence in international waters is already reaching a ‘point of no return’. As highlighted in an excellent analysis from Zack Liao – China’s attempt to erase Taiwan as an independent maritime actor and convert its political claims over international waters into an “administrative fact”.
In short, with these exercises Beijing is openly challenging two sets of norms that have underpinned stability in the region for decades. Firstly, Taiwan’s “restricted waters” boundaries, administered as a de-facto ‘contiguous zone’ extending 24-nautical miles from Taiwan’s main island, as well as waters around its outlying islands. Secondly, the norms and principles of freedom of navigation, including as set out under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Resisting Beijing’s attempts to undermine these norms is vital not only for Taiwan, but also for upholding regional security and global prosperity - where the waters around Taiwan serve as one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes by cargo traffic.
How have the G7 and others responded?
Meeting in France just days later, the G7 Summit would have been the perfect opportunity for the world’s most powerful democracies to push back against Beijing’s recent exercises. However, instead the G7 leaders’ statement simply re-iterated language on their opposition to “any unilateral attempts to change the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea.
This marks an alarmingly consistent pattern – while China’s subthreshold activities around Taiwan are escalating, G7 and partner statements are still stuck on boilerplate language. Repeated focus on stating their opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo fails to recognise the ways in which the status quo is being progressively dismantled in real time. To bolster narrative clarity, the G7 and its partners must:
Define the core functional tenets of the status quo that ensure it actually works – such as Taiwan’s administration of its 24-nautical mile zone and other restricted waters.
Highlight the specific Chinese activities that are undermining these aspects of the status quo, such as its repeated incursions into Taiwan’s restricted waters.
Work with Taiwan and regional partners to bolster capabilities to monitor, respond to and protect against future attempts to undermine the status quo.