Free Lecture》53 ships cross the first island chain, Beijing’s pressure is becoming regional

National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu released a Chinese ship deployment map on October 28, showing 34 warships and 19 coast guard and other official ships, including the Liaoning aircraft carrier formation, distributed in the waters surrounding Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Beijing said the Liaoning's activities in the Western Pacific were routine training. What really deserves Taiwan's attention is not just the number of "53 ships", but that China's maritime power is undergoing three changes at the same time: space extrapolation, military and police mixing, and normalized use.

The Chinese Navy's "Liaoning" aircraft carrier strike group sailed out of the "first island chain" last month and arrived in the southernmost waters of the Philippines. (AP file photo) 1. Pressure is pushing from the Taiwan Strait to the region: The Japanese Ministry of Defense has recently confirmed that Chinese warships entered the Pacific through the Okinawa-Miyako and Osumi Straits, and the Liaoning also passed through the first island chain in October. This shows that China’s maritime activities no longer only surround Taiwan, but also connect the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea into a larger space for activities. For Taiwan, the risk is that the same force can quickly switch between training, patrolling and deterrence, so early warning judgments cannot only look at Taiwan's surroundings.

2. Staggered pressure from warships and official ships: Among the 53 ships this time, there were not only 34 warships, but also 19 coast guard and other official ships. The simultaneous presence of military and law enforcement forces in different sea areas has further blurred the boundaries between traditional "military exercises" and gray zone activities. Therefore, what Taiwan faces is not just the number of warships, but the continuous pressure exerted by ships of different identities at different intensities, which increases the cost of monitoring, identification and response.

3. The real challenge is normalized consumption: The Ministry of National Defense stated on the 29th that it has grasped the dynamics of the Liaoning, other fleets and official ships through joint intelligence, surveillance and intelligence exchange with allies. The problem is that when such cross-regional deployments occur repeatedly, a single "whether the line has been crossed" is no longer enough to judge the risk. It is necessary to continuously compare the frequency, region, force composition and mission type in order to distinguish between routine activities and changes that increase pressure.

The 53 ships alone cannot directly prove that Beijing is prepared to take immediate military action, but its regionalization trend cannot be ignored just because of the word "routine training." What Taiwan really wants to maintain is to maintain judgment time and decision-making autonomy under normalized pressure; therefore, the focus is not on amplifying panic, but on continuous control, public identification, and cross-verification with regional partners, making it difficult for gray zone pressure to achieve results through ambiguity and fatigue.

Secretary-General of the National Security Council Joseph Wu recently released information stating that the Chinese Communist Party is sending a fleet of ships, including the Liaoning aircraft carrier strike group, to the east of the first island chain to conduct exercises. (File photo, taken from Wu Zhaoxie’s X platform) (The author is a strategic researcher)