← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- Taiwan proposed a record defense budget for 2027 exceeding T$1 trillion ($31.4 billion), representing a 16 percent increase.
- Taiwan partnered with an American startup to co-develop autonomous underwater drones to strengthen coastal defense capabilities.
- Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense detected one PLA aircraft and up to 16 PLA Navy vessels operating around the island.
- Taiwanese legislative sources reported PRC efforts to lobby against domestic uncrewed system procurement bills in Taipei.
- Taiwanese political groups issued statements citing potential regional stability risks from Japanese defense posture shifts.
Taiwan proposed a record 2027 defense budget exceeding T$1 trillion ($31.4 billion) on August 17 while PLA aerial sorties near the island dropped to a single detected aircraft. The Taiwan Strait maintains separate effective administration under sustained cross-Strait political and military monitoring without active hostilities.
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense reported detecting one PLA aircraft and up to 16 PLA Navy vessels operating in surrounding waters during a 24-hour window ending August 17. Concurrently, Taiwanese authorities announced a defense partnership with an American startup to manufacture autonomous underwater drones for asymmetric maritime operations.
President Lai Ching-te publicly defended the proposed 16 percent increase in 2027 defense spending as an essential investment in deterrence and peace. Meanwhile, political sources in Taipei cited PRC efforts to disrupt domestic legislative approval for uncrewed aerial vehicle procurement bills.
The proposed T$1 trillion defense authorization builds on Taiwan's ongoing force modernization, following the launch of the annual Han Kuang No. 42 exercises earlier in August 2026. Beijing maintains its refusal to renounce force and routinely deploys naval and coast guard platforms around Taiwan to assert jurisdictional claims.
The combination of expanding long-term defense expenditures and low-volume daily PLA air patrols preserves current cross-Strait deterrence without altering administrative control. Assessment: Cross-Strait operational activity will remain centered on routine naval patrols and long-term procurement spending rather than immediate armed escalation over the coming weeks.
- 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 18/100 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 18/100 — 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.