Taiwan without major drills: Beijing changes its method, not its goal

For years the pattern was predictable. Taiwan’s president gives a National Day speech on October 10, Beijing denounces it as “separatist”, and in the days that follow the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) surrounds the island with exercises simulating a blockade. This year that cycle was not repeated.

According to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Beijing met Lai Ching-te’s speech with its usual criticism but, by mid-October, had not used it as a pretext for a major exercise, as it had done in previous years. Lai, for his part, omitted his standard formulation that “neither side of the Taiwan Strait is subordinate to the other”, which Beijing considers separatist. The last major exercise around Taiwan was in December 2025, when the PLA conducted snap maneuvers simulating a blockade.

The lull, however, does not mean a softening. It means a change of method.

From announced exercises to snap maneuvers

AEI assesses that Beijing may be moving away from predictable exercises tied to political triggers and toward snap maneuvers that demonstrate a capacity for rapid mobilization. The difference matters strategically: an exercise that follows a speech gives Taiwan and its allies time to prepare; a snap exercise tests precisely the phase in which a real attack would enjoy its greatest advantage.

The signals are there. On October 14 and 15, the aircraft carrier “Liaoning” conducted “routine” exercises in the western Pacific, including launching aircraft in Taiwan’s eastern exclusive economic zone, which AEI interprets as a possible minor warning. On the same day, October 14, four Type 071 amphibious transport docks, the “Kunlunshan”, “Changbaishan”, “Qilianshan” and “Wuzhishan”, conducted live-fire drills, simulated air defense and replenishment at sea. It was the first formation of all four ships since August 2025, and the first time Chinese media had reported on them operating without other ship types.

New capabilities are also in the works. On October 18, Naval News reported on a second vessel suspected of being a drone “mothership”, about 150 meters long, while satellite imagery points to the construction of at least two extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles, 35 to 45 meters long.

Elections as a battlefield

The most intense front, however, is the information one. Ahead of Taiwan’s local elections on November 28, the National Security Bureau recorded 185.6 million likely Chinese cyberattacks on the government network in July, an average of 2.58 million a day. Between January and August, 2.5 million suspicious social media posts were identified, 48 percent more than in the same period of 2025. According to Taiwanese officials, Beijing is using AI-generated content, fake polls and purpose-built accounts to deepen polarization and discourage turnout.

The Bureau’s director, Tsai Ming-yen, suggested that the Chinese Communist Party may be subsidizing cheap airfares for Taiwanese living in China so they can return and vote, on the assumption that they lean toward Beijing.

Running in parallel is what Taiwanese prosecutors call “transnational repression”. On October 21, five Taiwanese men were indicted over an alleged plot to seriously injure comedian Huang Yi-hao, who had mocked Xi Jinping: they allegedly received $14,000 from a China-based individual, tracked him with a GPS device and caused a car crash. According to AEI, Beijing is likely using criminal proxies to preserve deniability.

The Philippines as a rehearsal

While Taiwan is under pressure below the threshold of war, in the South China Sea the pressure is more open. On October 15, the Philippine Navy conducted a patrol near Scarborough Shoal together with the US Navy, after which China deployed additional navy and coast guard vessels, drones and a maritime patrol aircraft. On October 20, the USS “Charleston” conducted a freedom of navigation operation near Sabina Shoal. According to AEI, it was only the second such US operation in the South China Sea since 2017. China, according to the same source, is again blocking resupply of the Philippine ship at Second Thomas Shoal after a two-year truce.

The response: Yonaguni

The most concrete allied response came from Japan. During the “Keen Sword” exercise from October 19 to 29, US Marines and the Japan Self-Defense Forces deployed anti-ship missiles to Yonaguni island, about 110 kilometers from Taiwan. The Marines brought the NMESIS system, which fires the Naval Strike Missile, and Japan its Type 88 missile system. AEI says this was the first deployment of the US military on Yonaguni.

For the PLA this is a serious problem: such forces could deny it control of maritime passages such as the Miyako Strait and the Luzon Strait, without which an operation against Taiwan is almost unthinkable. A Chinese military journal warned as early as 2023 that the US Marines’ “stand-in forces” concept could “seize the initiative” from China.

What to watch

Three dates will shape the coming weeks: Taiwan’s local elections on November 28, as a test of Chinese influence; the APEC summit in Shenzhen, where Russian officials are flagging a possible trilateral meeting of Putin, Xi and Trump; and Beijing’s reaction to the US-Japanese presence on Yonaguni. None of these events need bring a military crisis. But each will show whether Beijing is using the lull around Taiwan to calm things down or to prepare.