← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- Taiwan proposed a record 2027 defense budget exceeding NT$1 trillion ($31.4 billion to $35.2 billion) to reinforce island defenses.
- Taiwan's military launched its first live-fire exercises utilizing first-person view (FPV) strike drones to strengthen asymmetric capabilities.
- The People's Liberation Army conducted a logistics exercise simulating wartime financial resupply, delivering physical currency and gold to forward units.
- Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense detected five PLA aircraft sorties and eight to fifteen Chinese naval and official vessels operating near the island.
- Taiwan partnered with an American technology firm to co-develop uncrewed underwater vehicles aimed at bolstering maritime domain awareness.
Taiwan's defense financing expands while Chinese air and naval forces maintain routine operational presence around the island. President Lai Ching-te announced plans for a record 2027 defense budget exceeding NT$1 trillion as Taiwan integrates new asymmetric warfare assets.
On 18 August, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense detected five PLA aircraft sorties and up to fifteen naval and official vessels operating near Taiwan. Taiwan launched its first live-fire exercise incorporating first-person view (FPV) attack drones and partnered with a US firm on uncrewed underwater vehicles. Simultaneously, Chinese military logistics units conducted a specialized drill simulating the distribution of physical cash and gold during potential combat operations.
Taiwanese political leadership presented the proposed NT$1 trillion 2027 defense allocation as an essential commitment to maintaining regional deterrence against Beijing. Meanwhile, US naval transits through the Taiwan Strait recorded a lower frequency compared to prior operational periods, reflecting shifting patrol schedules under current administration directives.
Beijing continues to pair gray-zone military intimidation with targeted operational rehearsal scenarios addressing force sustainment and financial administration during hypothetical conflict contingencies. Taipei responds by escalating domestic defense expenditure, industrial collaboration with foreign technology firms, and civilian readiness initiatives.
The systematic expansion of Taiwan's military capital spending and asymmetric tactical testing counterbalances Beijing's steady operational pressure along the median line and maritime approaches. Assessment: Cross-Strait operational friction will persist at an elevated baseline as Taiwan formalizes its record defense budget and integrates uncrewed combat platforms into routine force deployment.
- 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 17/100 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 17/100 — 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.