China’s Sudden Silence Over Taiwan: Some suggestions

Over the past two years, the skies around Taiwan have become one of the most closely watched arenas in global geopolitics.

Almost every morning, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense publishes a short bulletin reporting how many Chinese aircraft and naval vessels have been detected operating around the island. What was once an occasional occurrence has become a routine feature of regional security: Chinese aircraft entering Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on an almost daily basis.

The pattern has intensified steadily since 2024.

Chinese aircraft - fighters, bombers, reconnaissance planes and drones- have regularly crossed the so-called median line of the Taiwan Strait, the informal boundary that for decades served as a buffer between mainland China and Taiwan.

These flights are usually accompanied by naval patrols from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), forming a coordinated pattern of pressure that analysts commonly describe as ‘grey-zone’ activities: actions that stop short of outright conflict but are designed to test Taiwan’s defences, probe responses and demonstrate capability.

The tempo of these operations often surges during large-scale Chinese military exercises, the most prominent of which recently have been the drills labelled ‘Joint Sword.’

Joint Sword-2024A, took place in May 2024, just three days after the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing views as a pro-independence figure. Chinese state media and official statements at the time made clear that the timing was not coincidental.

During these drills, dozens of PLA aircraft were reported flying sorties around Taiwan, including J-16 and J-10 fighter jets, H-6 strategic bombers, KJ-500 airborne early-warning aircraft and Y-8 reconnaissance and electronic warfare platforms, as well as multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. Many entered Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone and crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait - an informal buffer that Beijing once largely observed but now routinely ignores.

It was a similar story during Joint Sword-2024B in October 2024, when Taiwan detected more than 100 Chinese aircraft within 24 hours, approaching and manoeuvring around the island alongside large naval formations.

On this occasion, fighter aircraft approached Taiwan from several directions simultaneously, including from the north and south of the Strait, while H-6 bombers carried out simulated strike runs and surveillance aircraft tracked Taiwanese responses.

On both occasions, Taiwan scrambled fighters repeatedly while air defence systems monitored incoming formations. Officials in Taipei (and beyond) warned that the drills resembled rehearsals for an encirclement or blockade scenario.

The pattern of manoeuvres continued throughout 2025, when Taiwan regularly reported 30, 50 or even more than 70 PLA aircraft detected in a single day, often accompanied by naval vessels operating around the island.

Each wave of activity triggers a response from Taiwan’s military: fighter aircraft are scrambled to shadow incoming planes while air defence systems track their movements. The scale and sophistication of these operations have raised persistent alarm in Taipei, reinforcing the sense that Beijing is steadily refining the operational playbook for surrounding and isolating Taiwan in a crisis.

Then a few weeks ago, we saw the appearance of a Chinese naval flotilla forming what analysts described as a screening force in the South China Sea and nearby waters.

Satellite imagery and regional intelligence reports suggested that dozens of Chinese naval vessels - at times more than 90 ships wide - were deployed simultaneously, stretching from the Yellow Sea through the East and South China Seas into the western Pacific.

Rather than acting as a single task group, the vessels appeared to operate in multiple coordinated formations, including destroyers, frigates, amphibious ships and supply vessels. The purpose seemed to be to create a layered maritime presence capable of monitoring and deterring outside forces, particularly U.S. naval activity.

Such deployments fit a pattern sometimes described as ‘screening’ or ‘cabbage tactics,’ in which successive layers of naval and coast-guard vessels surround an area to control access and isolate potential targets.

Most analysts agreed that this marked a shift in Chinese operational thinking: namely assembling and co-ordinating a maritime perimeter capable of shielding larger operations closer to Taiwan or contested waters while complicating the movement of outside navies across the wider theatre.

Curiously, and suddenly, all this activity has stopped.

Taiwan’s defence ministry issues a daily statement of activities, incursions and threats. Since teh start of the year, sorties are down almost 50%.

Over the last week, it has recorded no PLA aircraft entering the ADIZ at all.

Chinese naval vessels remain present in nearby waters, wiht seven PLA Navy ships as well as other government vessels close to the island; so the Chinese military presence has not disappeared. But the steady stream of aircraft have.

The question, then, is why.

One possible explanation lies within the Chinese military itself, where the senior leadership has been shaken by an extraordinary series of purges.

In October 2025, General He Weidong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and one of the officers responsible for Taiwan contingencies, was expelled from the Communist Party and the PLA for ‘serious violations of discipline and law.’ Around the same time, Admiral Miao Hua, the CMC’s powerful political work chief, was also removed amid corruption investigations.

Then, as I wrote at the time, was saw General Zhang Youxia - the most senior uniformed officer in China and another CMC vice-chairman- placed under investigation for alleged corruption and political violations.

Those purges have spread further down the hierarchy. In recent weeks nine senior military officers have been removed as delegates to the National People’s Congress, including figures linked to key operational commands connected to Taiwan contingencies.

Such reshuffles produce uncertainty - and can have other more serious consequences too. But perhaps this is why Taiwan sorties have stopped.

Another possibility relates to diplomacy.

A long-anticipated meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump has been expected for months and is scheduled to take place at the end of this month. Some are speculating that Beijing may be thinking of the optics in the run-up to such talks.

With Trump reacting so violently and unpredictably to slights, threats and briefings, the thinking goes, perhaps better to play safe. That sounds unlikely to me: Chinese foreign policy positions emphasise strength, not weakness.

More likely, then, is the third explanation: that US (and Israeli) intervention in Iran has produced a reaction in Beijing as to how to position China and its role in a changing world.

The use of force in Iran - unilateral, overwhelming and framed by many observers as hegemonic - has provoked widespread criticism across much of the world.

For Beijing, this moment may present as opportunity: by contrasting with Washington’s willingness to deploy military power directly, China can position itself as a defender of stability and the status quo.

As such, dialling down visible military pressure around Taiwan, even temporarily, would help reinforce that narrative. Instead of appearing as a disruptive power threatening conflict, Beijing is presenting itself as a cautious and responsible actor.

In geopolitical terms, that may be a shrewd calculation: if global opinion is turning sharply against what many see as unnecessary wars and coercive interventions, then adopting a more restrained posture - at least for now - could strengthen China’s diplomatic position.

That is especially true Asia where countries have reacted with horror not only to the attacks on Iran, but on the implications on energy, trade, food supply and more.

So teh sudden quiet in the skies around Taiwan may not signal weakness or disorganisation, but rather us best understood as a deliberate choice of stepping back momentarily, and showing how the aggressor in today’s world is based in Washington, not Beijing.

If that interpretation is correct, then the pause in Chinese air activity is not an accident or anomaly, but a signal. In a moment when military power is being used with striking bluntness elsewhere, Beijing may be betting that restraint - or at least the appearance of it - will prove the more effective geopolitical weapon.

More soon.