China is creating a new normal for its neighbors, one close call at a time

Statistics show that Beijing is steadily increasing military pressure on Taiwan and Japan, both at sea and in the air. This «anaconda strategy» is heightening the risk of conflict.

China is a master of this strategy. By exerting constant pressure over the years, it has managed to dominate large parts of the South China Sea. Other littoral states such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia have protested, but Beijing has continued undeterred, with the exception of a few tactical pauses.

This approach has several advantages for the communist regime:

Careful statistics can render this little-by-little tactic more readily visible. One source for such data is Taiwan. The democratic island claimed by China publishes daily figures on Chinese aircraft and ships that encroach on its air and sea space. Taipei also documents cyberattacks in detail.

Surge in flights around Taiwan

Taiwan keeps ongoing records of Chinese flights into its air defense identification zone, known as the ADIZ for short. This zone is bordered by a line running down the center of the Taiwan Strait, which is intended to keep aircraft from each side away from one another. The ADIZ and the center line were declared by the Americans after World War II. For decades, China and Taiwan largely respected this median line.

The situation looks very different today. On average, Chinese military aircraft – fighter jets, surveillance planes, drones and transport planes – fly into the Taiwanese ADIZ more than eight times a day. If one includes aircraft that fly close to the ADIZ or turn away only shortly before reaching it, the sum rises to an average of 14 events per day. In Taiwan's statistics, these latter flights appear under the heading «in the airspace around Taiwan.»

In extreme cases, the number can be much higher. On Oct. 14, 2024, Taiwan detected 153 Chinese aircraft in its vicinity, 111 of which flew into the ADIZ. The Chinese People's Liberation Army carried out a major maneuver on that day, because it was responding to a Taiwan National Day speech by President Lai Ching-te that Chinese officials deemed provocative.

The 2024 graphic does not show that compared to the previous year, Chinese flights into Taiwan's ADIZ have grown significantly more frequent, rising from an average of 4.7 to 8.4 per day. That is an increase of 80%, and is more than three times the comparable rate seen in 2021.

Constant presence of Chinese navy

A similar situation can be found on the water. Around five or six Chinese warships are present in the waters around Taiwan at virtually all times. The Taiwanese authorities do not define exactly what they mean by «waters around Taiwan.» They fear that China could draw conclusions about Taiwan's surveillance capabilities if they were to specify an exact distance.

From conversations with Taiwanese officials, it can be concluded that these reports include waters reaching a few nautical miles outside the so-called contiguous zone, which extends 24 nautical miles, or around 44 kilometers, from Taiwan's coast. To date, Chinese ships seem to be staying outside this zone itself.

The extent to which the presence of the Chinese navy around Taiwan is now the norm can be seen from the fact that there were just eight days last year on which Beijing did not send out any ships. There was a strong storm on each of these days.

The number of ships also rises sharply when China conducts large-scale maneuvers. For example, the Joint Sword 2024A exercise took place in May, while Joint Sword 2024B happened in October. Each of these exercises seemed to be based on a blockade scenario in which Taiwan was to be cut off from the outside world. As many as 27 Chinese warships were deployed in each instance.

Beijing's coast guard also took part in these large-scale maneuvers. China has the largest coast guard in the world. Some of the organization's ships are larger than most warships, and are more heavily armed than coast guard vessels from other countries.

While the Chinese coast guard serves a supporting role for the country's navy around the main island of Taiwan, it takes a leading role around Kinmen and Matsu – two island groups that belong to Taiwan but are located directly off the mainland. There, coast guard vessels often enter waters that the Taiwanese authorities have declared to be restricted zones, thus demonstrating that Beijing does not recognize the zones. In this case, the relevant figures are available only in very incomplete form. According to the Taiwanese coast guard, Chinese vessels entered into the zones around Kinmen 53 times last year. The figures for Matsu have not been made public.

Balloons for psychological warfare

A new phenomenon emerged in December 2023, a few weeks before Taiwan elected its president and members of parliament. Suddenly, Taiwan's military spotted balloons coming from China. Some of them grazed the country's ADIZ, while others flew across the island.

It is unclear whether these balloons have a military use. However, they do serve to absorb Taiwanese air surveillance resources. The authorities must ensure that the balloons are not a danger to civil aviation. However, Taiwan's military can't do much about the balloons aside from monitoring them, leaving them somewhat helpless.

The balloon flights stopped in the spring – until they restarted again in December. It is not clear what Beijing is aiming to achieve with this. But creating confusion is an important goal of gray zone operations, which are themselves a kind of psychological warfare.

Millions of cyberattacks

China is putting pressure on Taiwan in cyberspace as well as in the air and on the sea around the island. Last year, Taiwan's National Security Bureau counted around 2.4 million attacks on IT infrastructure – per day. Most of these attacks were carried out by China, writes the agency in its annual report.

Strikingly, the number of attacks stayed relatively stable in 2023, but then shot up sharply after the elections in Taiwan. It appeared that China was using this avenue to express its anger that Taiwan's voters had elected Lai, a critic of Beijing's government, as president. As a year-over-year average, the number of attacks doubled. According to sources in Taiwan, the Chinese hackers are particularly targeting the telecommunications infrastructure, along with the transportation sector and the supply chain for military goods.

Significant pressure on Japan

China is also putting pressure on Japan. In 2024, Japanese fighter jets were scrambled 432 times to intercept Chinese aircraft that had flown into Japan's air identification zone.

On Aug. 26, 2024, a Chinese surveillance aircraft even briefly entered Japanese airspace over the Danjo Islands. Japan protested, and the Chinese government later claimed this had happened unintentionally.

The number of Chinese flights has fallen slightly in recent years. From a Japanese perspective, however, the increasing cooperation between the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the Russian armed forces is a cause for concern. The air forces of both countries have repeatedly carried out joint maneuvers. Russia is the country that triggers Japanese interception operations most frequently after China.

Until 10 years ago, the Russians were encroaching on Japan's ADIZ more frequently than any other country's forces. China overtook Russia for the first time in 2012, and the number of Chinese flights near Japan rose sharply until 2016. During that period, relations between Beijing and Tokyo were particularly tense. Since then, the number of flights has fluctuated, but has stayed at a high level.

Year-round presence

Japanese and Chinese forces encounter one another most frequently in the waters around the Senkaku Islands. While Japan controls these uninhabited rocks, China calls them the Diaoyu, and claims them for itself. Beijing underlines this assertion by frequently entering the waters around the islands with ships from its coast guard.

In 2024, China's coast guard was present in the contiguous zone around the islands on 355 days, a record. The contiguous zone extends 24 nautical miles, or around 44 kilometers, off the coast. The Chinese ships also entered Japan’s territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles out to sea, on 115 occasions.

Japanese sources say that China's coast guard is increasingly deploying larger ships. These are suitable for longer deployment and can also sail in bad weather. This allows Beijing to maintain an almost constant presence in the region.

The example of Senkaku illustrates the amount of resources a country has to expend to counter Chinese pressure. The waters affected cover 4,740 square kilometers – slightly less than the area of the Swiss canton of Valais. To maintain a round-the-clock presence there, Japan's coast guard deploys 10 medium-sized ships and two large vessels with helicopters on board. According to The Diplomat magazine, this task requires 600 people.

China's pressure becomes the new normal

These statistics show that China's pressure on Taiwan and Japan is becoming a part of everyday life. Normally, the encroachments go largely unreported. The threshold at which the public becomes aware of the events is constantly rising. In the case of Taiwan, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to recognize the beginning of a real attack. If 153 Chinese planes flying toward the island is not an emergency, what is it?

In a recent interview with The Economist, the commander of Taiwan's navy, Admiral Tang Hua, compared this slow but incessant increase in pressure to the stranglehold of a snake. China is employing an «anaconda strategy,» the admiral said.

Tang also said that Taiwan is working to avoid direct confrontation. The People's Liberation Army «is trying to force Taiwan to make mistakes,» and is looking for «excuses» to trigger a blockade, the admiral said. However, Taiwanese forces are exercising restraint to avoid provocation or escalation, he added.

Nevertheless, the Chinese approach is creating the risk of a clash. Military aircraft and coast guard and naval vessels from China regularly come very close to those of Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines – and, more rarely, those of the U.S. and its allies. China's actions in the gray zone could lead to a conflict.