← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- United States President Donald Trump greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping plane-side at Joint Base Andrews ahead of bilateral summit talks. News - South China Morning Post · 24 Sep 2026Video of US military adjusting red carpet for China’s Xi sparks online backlash
- Taiwan transferred the decommissioned 500-ton Coast Guard Administration patrol vessel Kinmen to Philippine registration. USNI News · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan Transfers Coast Guard Patrol Vessel to the Philippines
- Taiwan's military and emergency services staged drills in Taitung simulating wartime contingencies including downed pilot recovery. The Diplomat · 23 Sep 2026In Taiwan, a Disaster Exercise Prepares for Conflict, Too
- China's People's Liberation Army Daily stated the expulsion of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli eliminated internal political dangers. News - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026PLA chiefs’ downfall eliminated ‘political danger’, military mouthpiece says
- The United States Air Force scheduled the defunding and closure of its China Aerospace Studies Institute by October 1. News - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026US Air Force to shut down research centre focusing on Chinese military
Bilateral Summit Protocol
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at Joint Base Andrews for talks with United States President Donald Trump, drawing scrutiny over ceremonial reception protocol while high-level discussions over regional security proceed. News - South China Morning Post · 24 Sep 2026Video of US military adjusting red carpet for China’s Xi sparks online backlash
Regional Maritime Cooperation
Taiwan transferred the decommissioned 500-ton Coast Guard Administration patrol vessel Kinmen to Philippine registration at Kaohsiung under the name BLING NO.1. The transfer signals expanding low-profile maritime security cooperation between Taipei and Manila, coinciding with upgraded patrol posture around Taiwan's Pratas Islands outpost. USNI News · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan Transfers Coast Guard Patrol Vessel to the PhilippinesLatest articles - The Japan Times · 24 Sep 2026Taiwan upgrades maritime patrol capacity for vulnerable South China Sea outpost
Taiwan Contingency Exercises
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense combined civilian rescue agencies in Taitung for comprehensive response exercises simulating major earthquake damage layered with armed conflict contingencies. The drills practiced extracting downed foreign aviators and coordinating offshore transfers with Coast Guard Administration craft, testing civil-defense mobilization mechanisms. The Diplomat · 23 Sep 2026In Taiwan, a Disaster Exercise Prepares for Conflict, Too
Military Institutional Shakeup
Official state media reinforced Chinese Communist Party control over the People's Liberation Army following the formal expulsion of former Central Military Commission vice-chairman Zhang Youxia and former Joint Staff Department chief Liu Zhenli. The leadership purge coincides with United States administrative retrenchment in open-source defense research, marked by the scheduled defunding of the Air University's China Aerospace Studies Institute. News - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026PLA chiefs’ downfall eliminated ‘political danger’, military mouthpiece saysNews - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026US Air Force to shut down research centre focusing on Chinese military
Assessment
High-level bilateral engagement between Washington and Beijing proceeds without acute cross-Strait military escalation, while Taiwan incrementally expands peripheral maritime ties and domestic contingency preparations.
- 2026-09-22
Taiwan transfers decommissioned coast guard vessel to the Philippines
Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration transferred a decommissioned 500-tonne patrol vessel to the Philippine Coast Guard.
- 2026-09-21
Royal New Zealand Navy vessels transit the Taiwan Strait
Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Te Mana and replenishment tanker HMNZS Aotearoa transited the Taiwan Strait.
- 2026-09-16
Conservative Genta Koja wins Okinawa gubernatorial election
Conservative candidate Genta Koja defeated incumbent Denny Tamaki in Okinawa's gubernatorial election, ending twelve years of opposition to Japanese defense expansion.
4 more
- 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.
- 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.
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 21.2/100 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 21.2/100 — 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.