← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: China – Taiwan Tensions
China – Taiwan conflict
- Chinese President Xi Jinping met United States President Donald Trump at the White House to address bilateral competition over trade, technology, and Taiwan. World news | The Guardian · 24 Sep 2026At Trump meeting, Xi Jinping lays out terms to avoid US-China military conflict
- Taiwan Coast Guard Administration patrol vessel Qijin fired a supersonic Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile during joint military live-fire drills. News - South China Morning Post · 22 Sep 2026Taiwan coastguard’s rare missile firing reveals deepening links with navy
- Taiwan delivered the decommissioned 500-ton patrol vessel Kinmen to Philippine registration under the name BLING NO.1 at Kaohsiung. USNI News · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan Transfers Coast Guard Patrol Vessel to the PhilippinesTaipei Times · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan donates patrol vessel to the Philippines, sources say
- Taiwan upgraded its maritime patrol capacity around the Pratas Islands in the South China Sea in response to increased Chinese naval presence. Taipei Times · 25 Sep 2026Taiwan upgrades S China Sea outpost patrol capacity
- United States Air Force announced the closure and defunding of the China Aerospace Studies Institute at Air University effective October 1. News - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026US Air Force to shut down research centre focusing on Chinese military
Summit Diplomacy
Chinese President Xi Jinping met United States President Donald Trump in Washington to negotiate management terms over artificial intelligence, commerce, and Taiwan. Xi warned against a geopolitical collision course while negotiating a short-term trade truce and scheduling bilateral cooperation at upcoming multilateral forums. World news | The Guardian · 24 Sep 2026At Trump meeting, Xi Jinping lays out terms to avoid US-China military conflictNews - South China Morning Post · 25 Sep 2026AI war, Taiwan and translation: SCMP answers your questions from Xi-Trump summitNPR Topics: World · 23 Sep 2026From cybersecurity to AI to Taiwan, what's at stake in Trump's summit with Xi
Taiwan Coast Guard Integration
Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration integrated anti-ship strike capabilities into joint operations with the armed forces. The Anping-class cutter Qijin launched a supersonic Hsiung Feng III missile hitting a target ship over 100 kilometers away, while another cutter launched a subsonic Hsiung Feng II. News - South China Morning Post · 22 Sep 2026Taiwan coastguard’s rare missile firing reveals deepening links with navy
Maritime Posture
Taiwan increased regular naval and coast guard patrols around the Pratas Islands following persistent Chinese maritime activity near the remote outpost. Simultaneously, Taiwan transferred a decommissioned 500-ton Kinmen-class patrol craft to Philippine registry in Kaohsiung under non-governmental framing. USNI News · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan Transfers Coast Guard Patrol Vessel to the PhilippinesTaipei Times · 25 Sep 2026Taiwan upgrades S China Sea outpost patrol capacityTaipei Times · 23 Sep 2026Taiwan donates patrol vessel to the Philippines, sources say
PLA Command Purge
Official Chinese military media confirmed the expulsion of former Central Military Commission vice-chairman Zhang Youxia and former Joint Staff Department chief Liu Zhenli. The editorial framed their removal as eliminating internal factionalism and corruption, coinciding with independent assessments probing PLA operational cohesion. Taipei Times · 26 Sep 2026China’s purges spur doubt about its military mightNews - South China Morning Post · 23 Sep 2026PLA chiefs’ downfall eliminated ‘political danger’, military mouthpiece says
Assessment
Superpower bilateral dialogue lowers the immediate risk of acute cross-Strait crisis even as Taiwan increases peripheral outpost security and coastal defense strike integration.
- 2026-09-25
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet at the White House
Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House to address bilateral competition over trade, technology, and Taiwan.
- 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.
4 more
- 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.
- 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.
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.