By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-06-15 01:06:30 | Updated at 2026-06-15 20:24:46
19 hours ago
BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping is shifting tactics in his campaign to pressure Taiwan, ramping up diplomatic isolation of the island while dialing down provocative displays of military aggression.
Taiwan recorded a daily average of five Chinese war planes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s buffer line with China through May 2026 – half the number logged in same period of 2025. In March, Beijing didn’t send a single fighter jet near Taiwan for seven straight days, the longest absence on record outside typhoon periods. For comparison, China sent 153 planes near Taiwan during one day at its peak in late 2024.
Beijing is also yet to conduct major military drills around Taiwan in 2026, and is showcasing new tactics for pressing its case without the People’s Liberation Army. China’s Ministry of Transport last week conducted patrols east of Taiwan for the first time, asserting the Communist Party’s territorial claims through survey vessels and firefighting ships.
At the same time, China has put a broader focus along the first island chain including around Japan and the Philippines.
The shift in military activity comes as China escalates efforts to silence President Lai Ching-te on the world stage. In addition to expelling a New York Times reporter from China in February, Beijing has punished European and Japanese outlets that interviewed him, according to people familiar with the matter. Under Taiwan’s previous leader, such interviews were mostly met with verbal protests.
Adding to Lai’s problems, every other Taiwanese president this century had transited the US mainland by this point in their first term, but his planned trip has been delayed since last summer. Lai’s attempt to make a rare visit to Africa in 2026 sparked a cross-continent campaign by Beijing to close international airspace to his plane. Earlier in June, Chinese authorities sanctioned New Zealand lawmakers for the first time, after they travelled to Taiwan.
“Beijing has likely concluded its previous grey zone pressure tactics were harming its international reputation or building support internationally for Taiwan,” said Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group. “What Beijing really wants is for Lai to lose at the ballot box in Taiwan’s next election in 2028.”
“In the meantime, China seeks to isolate him internationally in an effort to weaken his domestic support levels,” he added.
The change comes as Donald Trump casts doubt on America’s commitment to Taiwan, after branding weapons sales to Taipei a bargaining chip with Beijing. That marked a departure in tone from former US President Joe Biden, who claimed he’d defend Taiwan from any invasion by China, which considers the self-ruled island its territory.
US officials such as Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth have insisted there’s no change in US policy on Taiwan, even as the Pentagon chief adopts softer language on China’s top red line issue and calls for a “strong, quiet and clear” approach toward the region.
Since coming to power in Taiwan’s tightly contested January 2024 election, Lai has given six interviews to overseas media, an uptick from Tsai Ing-wen, who did four in the same period.
China is “acting to enforce real consequences on those it sees as violating its claimed sovereignty – or otherwise legitimising the Lai presidency, against which it seems to have a special animus,” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project. Before taking office, Lai called himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence,” comments that have enraged Beijing.
After Agence France-Presse published an interview with Lai in February, China’s Foreign Ministry expressed its displeasure to the company, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. China subsequently denied AFP reporters access to major political and diplomatic events, according to the people. The outlet was also denied visas for new reporters, The Wire China previously reported citing four people familiar with the matter.
“AFP is committed to covering China on the ground,” the company’s Asia-Pacific regional director Michael Mainville said in a statement. “We hope the Chinese authorities will continue to provide our journalists with the access they need to cover important stories in China.”
After Nikkei reporters in Taipei interviewed Lai in May 2025, Chinese authorities also threatened the publication with unspecified consequences, according to a person familiar who asked for anonymity discussing private matters. Since then, the Japanese outlet’s applications for long-term journalist visas hasn’t been successful, the person added. Nikkei declined to comment.
The New York Times in May announced that China expelled reporter Vivian Wang over a December interview with Lai conducted by her colleague via video link in the US.
Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with AFP, Nikkei and the NYTimes as a provider of news.
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “welcomes foreign journalists to report in China in accordance with laws”.
“At the same time, China firmly opposes foreign media outlets that provide a platform for the Taiwan authorities to spread the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist fallacy and even blatantly refer to China’s Taiwan province as a nation,” the ministry added. “Any act that tramples the red lines of the one-China principle will pay a price.”
As Taiwan’s next election comes into view in 2028, where Lai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party could win a record fourth consecutive term, China has boosted the profile of the island’s opposition leader. Xi hosted Kuomintang chairwoman Cheng Li-wun in Beijing this April for the first time in a decade.
During a two-week trip to the US in June, Cheng has tried to convince the American public that seeking greater engagement with Beijing is the right strategy for her island.
The KMT chair hasn’t said whether she’ll run in the 2028 election, but extended a historic invitation for Xi to visit Taiwan if she “has the opportunity”. Such a trip would likely face huge pushback in Taiwan, but would hand Beijing a major domestic win – without any military activity required.
“The first mainland leader to set foot in Taiwan would be a symbolic victory of extraordinary magnitude,” said Wang Zichen, deputy secretary general of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based research group. “Perhaps powerful enough to be presented as historic progress on reunification, even without a formal, immediate political settlement.” Bloomberg
