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Taipei, Taiwan – China’s coast guard and civilian vessels are increasing their presence in waters east of Taiwan, raising fears that Beijing could repeat restrictive measures that would cut the self-governing island off from trade and foreign aid.
Through June and July, China’s maritime security agency and coast guard conducted a series of patrols and “special maritime security operations”, according to a government announcement.
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While China regularly moves through the Taiwan Strait – the 180km (112 miles) long waterway that separates mainland China from the main island of Taiwan – this is the first time the administration has moved east of Taiwan in such rapid succession, according to experts.
K Tristan Tang, a non-resident fellow at the United States National Bureau of Asian Research, said the change has heavy and symbolic implications for Taiwan.
“Beijing is showing that it wants to increase its control over the waters east of Taiwan, around Taiwan instead of just destroying Taiwan’s territory,” Tang told Al Jazeera.
“Law enforcement operations” have included patrolling the area and requesting information from commercial vessels about their origin and destination, according to Taipei.
The shift to the east has also come amid a sharp rise in Chinese maritime activity around Taiwan and its outlying islands. Taiwan reported 55 sightings of Chinese coastal defense and maritime surveillance activities in June, up from 30 sightings in May.
These things included the activities of the Chinese people near the Dongsha Islands in Taiwan, also known as the Pratas Islands, in the South China Sea.
Beijing says the actions are a response they talk between Japan and the Philippines to establish their maritime boundaries, which violates the country’s “sovereignty and maritime rights and interests”, according to Chinese media.
Some of the waters surrounding southern Japan and northern Philippines intersect with Taiwan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is 370 kilometers from the coast.
On July 4, China’s coast guard announced that security operations east of Taiwan will continue to “resolutely protect China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests”.
China claims Taiwan as a territory – which means it also considers Taiwan’s EEZ as part of its jurisdiction. It also claims large areas of the South China Sea and East China Sea, some of which are contested by Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier told reporters that the incident near Taiwan was “a legitimate use of China’s power, to safeguard regional stability and maintain maritime stability in accordance with the law”.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
‘Grey zone’ approach
Ray Powell, founder and director of Sea Light, an ocean monitoring project based at Stanford University, said he sees the increase in tourists as part of China’s “boa constrictor strategy” to squeeze Taiwan one coil at a time.
China has vowed to take over Taiwan peacefully or by force, and uses a range of repressive measures, from blocking access to countries such as the World Health Organization, drones and fighter jets, to deadly cyberattacks, according to Taiwan’s National Security Bureau.
Known as the “grey zone” measures, these controls are designed to destroy Taiwan’s economy and destroy its culture in order to convince its 23 million people that a takeover is inevitable, according to Taiwanese officials.
Security analysts like Powell have warned that “law enforcement” operations could escalate into detention centers or quarantines. Taiwan is at the greatest risk of this kind of thing because it is an island that exports almost all of its energy.
“One day we can look back and say this was the beginning of the settlement,” he told Al Jazeera.
“These days it’s a radio issue; what’s the next stage after that? When do we start to see them stop and look at ships or drive them? It’s not a big step to start squeezing Taiwan for things it needs, like LNG,” Powell said.
China has already indicated that a shutdown may be on the table in the future. Since 2022, Beijing has been conducting large-scale military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, including the blockade of the island during its last exercise in December.
Although the role of the coast guard is much smaller than that of the maritime patrol, Chauluen Lin, a military expert at Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told Al Jazeera that the ships could be considered a “secondary force”.
China’s coast guard is not a regular police force, as it is under the authority of the Central Military Commission as part of the People’s Armed Police.
China’s coastal patrols have been unusual enough to draw rare agreement from the United Kingdom, Germany and France, who said at the end of June that “these actions threaten regional stability and freedom of navigation and international security”.
“We reiterate our opposition to any change that exists, especially through the threat or use of force or coercion,” he said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that Washington does not agree with the increase in travel and that it is disturbing the peace.
A shocking US
William Yang, the Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Northeast Asia, told Al Jazeera that Beijing could take advantage of the US, which is distracted by the war in Iran and the president who seems to be out of touch with Taiwan.
Although the US does not recognize Taiwan as a country, it has pledged to help the island defend itself. Much of this support has come in the form of equipment sales, training and knowledge sharing.
US President Donald Trump also cast doubt on his pledge when he said that US arms sales could be “negotiable” with China after a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May.
“Foreign attitudes have changed dramatically in the Indo-Pacific region, especially from their point of view, Washington is focusing more on the Middle East,” Yang said.
“At the same time, the US does not have the bandwidth to monitor or respond to such an expansion of China’s maritime activities in these troubled waters,” he added.
