← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- Taiwan's military earmarked NT$95.93 million in its 2027 draft budget to establish a threat-hunting cyber unit with foreign instructors. News - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026Taiwan sets up US-backed cyber unit to hunt hidden military threats
- US Admiral Samuel Paparo met PLA General Yang Zhibin in Canada to restore theater-level military communication channels. News - South China Morning Post · 4 Sep 2026China, US military commanders snap 2-year break with talks in Canada
- Satellite imagery confirmed China expanded flight-test infrastructure at its Lop Nur desert base for sixth-generation stealth aircraft. News - South China Morning Post · 6 Sep 2026What China’s Lop Nur desert base expansion means for PLA stealth jets in race with US
- Japan expanded security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific to strengthen strategic endurance against potential Chinese military actions regarding Taiwan. News - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026How Tokyo is widening regional defence ties to complicate Beijing’s Taiwan calculus
- Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party registered separate candidates for Zhubei mayor following collapsed coalition negotiations. News - South China Morning Post · 5 Sep 2026Taiwan’s opposition parties split over mayoral race, threatening 2028 election alliance
Cyber Defense Infrastructure
Taiwan's military allocated NT$95.93 million in its 2027 draft budget to form a threat-hunting unit with foreign instructors modeled on U.S. Cyber Flag exercises to eliminate hidden backdoors. China's Ministry of State Security produced a 40-episode television series depicting cross-Strait espionage and counter-intelligence operations between 1998 and 2018. News - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026Taiwan sets up US-backed cyber unit to hunt hidden military threatsNews - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026Rare Beijing spy series highlights real-life intelligence drama with Taiwan
Strategic Aerospace and Military Doctrine
Satellite imagery confirmed expanded flight-test runways and facilities at China's Lop Nur desert base in Xinjiang to support sixth-generation stealth aircraft development. A study from the PLA Rocket Force Characteristic Medical Centre modeled low-yield tactical nuclear attacks on Chinese cities while citing Japan as a major concern, as China's National University of Defence Technology moved to revise its artificial intelligence curriculum to incorporate direct combat scenarios. News - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026PLA Rocket Force highlights ‘major danger signal’ from Japan in nuclear terror studyNews - South China Morning Post · 6 Sep 2026Chinese military university urged to revise AI course to ‘educate for war’News - South China Morning Post · 6 Sep 2026What China’s Lop Nur desert base expansion means for PLA stealth jets in race with US
Military Dialogue and Regional Alliances
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo held talks with PLA Eastern Theater Command Commander General Yang Zhibin in Canada, restoring flag-officer communication channels overseeing Taiwan Strait military encounters. Japan deepened security and defense-industrial partnerships across the Indo-Pacific and Europe to bolster strategic endurance against potential Taiwan contingencies. News - South China Morning Post · 7 Sep 2026How Tokyo is widening regional defence ties to complicate Beijing’s Taiwan calculusNews - South China Morning Post · 4 Sep 2026China, US military commanders snap 2-year break with talks in Canada
Cross-Strait Opposition Alignment
Negotiations between Taiwan's Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party broke down over nominating a joint candidate for Zhubei mayor, prompting both parties to register competing candidates and threatening broader opposition coordination for the 2028 elections. News - South China Morning Post · 5 Sep 2026Taiwan’s opposition parties split over mayoral race, threatening 2028 election alliance
Assessment
Expanded Taiwanese cyber defense funding and renewed U.S.-China theater commander communications balance ongoing strategic facility expansion and regional alliance building without altering the baseline conflict status.
- 2026-09-04
Top US and Chinese theater commanders meet to restore military communications
PLA Eastern Theater Command General Yang Zhibin met U.S. Admiral Samuel Paparo in Canada to restore senior military communication channels.
- 2026-08-28
China removes Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from the Central Military Commission
The National People's Congress Standing Committee removed former generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from China's Central Military Commission.
- 2026-08-22
Taiwan receives its first F-16V Block 70 fighter aircraft from the United States
The Republic of China Air Force took delivery of its initial F-16V Block 70 fighter jets supplied by the United States. The aircraft delivery updates Taiwan's air defense fleet amidst persistent air and naval pressure around the island.
3 more
- 2026-08-20
Taiwan proposes record $35 billion defense budget for 2027
Taiwan's executive branch proposed an 18 percent increase in defense spending for 2027, reaching a record $35 billion. The proposal prioritizes uncrewed systems and asymmetric warfare capabilities to counter PLA military activities.
- 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 21/100 as of 1 January 1970 (coercive pressure), 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 21/100 — coercive pressure. 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.