← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- Taiwan detected 11 PLA aircraft and eight PLAN vessels operating near its air and maritime boundaries on August 16.
- Taiwan tracked four PLA aircraft sorties and eight PLAN vessels around its territory on August 15.
- PRC officials publicly dismissed Taiwan's annual Han Kuang military exercises as an empty political display.
- A government audit in Taipei revealed technical shortfalls in Taiwan's drone defense systems against PLA counter-drone measures.
- U.S. officials monitored joint naval drills conducted by China and Indonesia in waters east of Taiwan.
Taiwan and China maintain separate administrative control across the Taiwan Strait while the People's Liberation Army conducts daily air and naval patrols around the main island. No active warfare, military invasion, or commercial maritime blockade is currently underway.
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense reported detecting 11 PLA aircraft and eight naval vessels operating around Taiwan in the 24 hours preceding August 16, following four aircraft and eight PLAN vessels detected the previous day. A government audit in Taipei highlighted technical deficiencies in Taiwan's counter-drone systems when facing updated PLA platforms. Meanwhile, Chinese and Indonesian naval units conducted joint maneuvers in waters east of Taiwan.
Beijing official statements dismissed Taiwan's ongoing Han Kuang No. 42 drills and civil defense exercises as ineffective political theater. U.S. officials voiced concern regarding expanded Chinese maritime exercises with regional partners in waters near Taiwan's eastern approaches. Public U.S. Navy transits through the Taiwan Strait recorded a lower frequency compared to prior annual averages.
The Taiwan Strait operational picture reflects persistent gray-zone military deployments following the conclusion of Taiwan's live-fire Han Kuang maneuvers. China uses daily air sorties into Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ and vessel presence to assert jurisdiction, while Taipei relies on radar tracking, missile units, and civil defense preparations to counter pressure without provoking direct armed confrontation.
Cross-Strait interactions continue along established military and legal enforcement patterns without verified structural escalation toward open conflict. Assessment: PLA daily sorties and naval presence around Taiwan will persist at baseline levels as both sides monitor military readiness exercises across the strait.
- 2026-08-12
China announces a joint naval exercise with Indonesia in waters east of Taiwan.
- 2026-08-11
Taiwan simulates invasion defense and communications throttling during major military exercises.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Are China and Taiwan at war?
No. There is no armed conflict. China claims Taiwan and applies sustained military and economic pressure — air and naval activity around the island, exercises, and coercion short of force — while Taiwan builds its defences. Not an armed conflict under international humanitarian law: none of the 102 conflicts in Geneva Academy's classification involves China and Taiwan. The index tracks the risk, not a war. The index reads 29.7/100 as of 1 January 1970 (friction), on a scale where 50 and above is reserved for fighting actually under way.
How dangerous is the China and Taiwan situation right now?
The index reads 29.7/100 — friction. The scale is anchored on 22 historical episodes from 1914 to 2005, so the number means the same thing from one theater to the next. It is a measurement of what is reported, not a forecast.
How is the China and Taiwan risk index calculated?
By fixed formula from open-source reporting: events are extracted and graded by how well evidenced they are, scored across weighted factors, and the model never picks the number. How the index works, and what it does not measure, is explained at wwiii.report/methodology.
How often is this updated?
Every day. The report is rebuilt from that day's reporting and the index re-judged from it, and a fall is published only once the evidence confirms it.
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
One 0–100 scale for the whole conflict. 0–49 is escalation before war; 50–100 is active war and how far it has gone.
50 is not a threshold the number can cross on its own. Which side a theater sits on is decided by whether verified belligerents are fighting there, so war onset always moves the score up across 50 — the number never declares a war by climbing.
It is a stage, not a probability: 42 is not a 42% chance of war. Below 50 it grades movement toward war, above 50 the war itself.
Why it moved, under the chart, names what changed in the latest move: the day’s readings — strikes, casualties, talks — and, when the conflict’s stage was re-judged, what was graded differently and the events behind it. Open it for the detail.
Re-judged from open reporting by fixed formula — the model never picks a number — and a fall publishes only once the evidence confirms it. A dot on the line is a day the stage itself moved. How it is made →
Direction — which way the week pushed. Severity — where the index sits. Connections — how much of the rest a shock here reaches. Cascade — that reach combined with how ready this theater is to go off.
The index reads the state of the conflict, not the volume of news. Each run grades the factors listed below against fixed rubrics, and the score follows by formula.
So a dramatic headline moves nothing unless it changes a grade. A theater already graded for recurring incursions absorbs one more without moving — it is priced in.
Open How this was measured for every grade, its movement since the last run, and the events behind it. Full construction →
A different measurement from the score above, from a different source. This line counts how much of the world's news reports conflict between these two states, against their own long-run normal: 100 is normal, 200 is twice the usual level.
It is computed mechanically from the GDELT Project's open event stream every 15 minutes and never touches the assessed index above — when both move together, that agreement is the signal. A day with too few events shows no reading rather than a guess. Click the chart for the full history.
Data: the GDELT Project.