Will China Move To Occupy Taiwan’s Offshore Islands?

Increasing Role Of China’s Coast Guard In Undermining Taiwan’s Sovereignty

The Chinese gray zone tactics that were described in the previous section have been ongoing since years, however, since February 2024, China has intensified its efforts, notably by engaging the China Coast Guard (or CCG), which has been actively contesting Taiwan’s jurisdiction over its peripheral islands, especially Kinmen.

In particular, there was an incident on February 14, 2024 of a Chinese fishing boat capsizing off Kinmen archipelago while being chased by the Taiwanese coastguard for having trespassed into Taiwan’s waters. All four crew members of the Chinese fishing boat were thrown into the water, two of whom later died.

This incident was the trigger, or depending on who one speaks/listens to, a convenient excuse for Beijing to intensify its efforts to contest Taiwan’s control of the waters around Taiwan’s offshore islands.

So, shortly after this, on February 17, 2024 China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement which accused Taiwan of “violent” behavior toward PRC fishermen and publicly rejected the existence of any “restricted or prohibited waters” in the vicinity of Kinmen.

Next day, the China Coast Guard (CCG) announced that it would start undertaking regular patrols and inspections in waters near Kinmen and the Chinese city of Xiamen.

Two days later, that is on February 20, 2024 a CCG maritime surveillance ship crossed the maritime boundary into Kinmen’s restricted waters for the first time.

Ever since, China has developed a consistent routine whereby groups of four CCG vessels conduct “law enforcement patrols” in restricted waters three to four times per month, lasting for two hours at a time.

In about a year, that is up until February 2025, there were 60 incidents of CCG vessels entering inside Taiwan’s restricted waters near its Kinmen Island.

In early May 2024, a Chinese state-run social media account affiliated with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), named yuyuan tantian (玉渊谭天), asserted that the CCG patrols have eliminated any notion of “restricted and prohibited waters” around Kinmen and further suggested that the “Kinmen model” could eventually be applied to the entire Taiwan Strait.

Accordingly, the Chinese side appears to be expanding the ambit of its CCG patrols in other areas of Taiwan such as in waters around Matsu and Dongsha. Waters around Dongsha in particular, have seen an uptick in the incidents entailing incursions by the CCG vessels and fishing boats the onset of 2025.

In addition to its patrols inside restricted waters of Taiwan’s outlying islands, the CCG has also been undertaking some other law enforcement measures.

For instance, shortly after the Chinese fishing boat capsizing incident in February of last year, the China Coast Guard boarded and inspected a Taiwanese sightseeing boat for 30 minutes after it strayed into China’s waters to avoid nearby shoals.

While commenting on this incident, Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration noted that Chinese tourist vessels often enter the maritime boundaries of Kinmen’s waters, however, Taiwan assumes good faith and has never inspected such Chinese boats.

On July 2^nd, 2024 the China Coast Guard, for the first time in 17 years, detained a Taiwanese fishing boat for illegally fishing in China’s waters northeast of Kinmen during a Chinese fishing moratorium. In fact, the Chinese Coast Guard vessels rebuffed the Taiwanese Coast Guard ships that were attempting to rescue the Taiwanese fishing boat.

The boat in question was named Da Jin Man 88, and it was escorted to the port of Quanzhou and its crew was detained there for over a month. Four of the boats crew members were released next month on August 13^th, 2024 but the boat’s captain and the boat itself remained under China’s custody for further investigation.

Until this incident, it was common for Taiwanese and Chinese fishermen to fish in each other’s waters, sometimes illegally, but the two coast guards usually expelled such vessels rather than detaining them. Ever since this incident, there have been reports of Taiwanese fishermen having become more afraid of fishing near the Chinese coast or around Kinmen since July 2^nd, 2024.

In addition to that, the CCG vessels have also begun interfering in Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA’s) own law enforcement activities in the island nation’s own restricted waters, such expelling illegal Chinese fishing vessels.

For instance, on February 15^th, 2025, a group of six Chinese fishing vessels together with around 29 small boats appeared simultaneously in the waters near the Dongsha Island, and these fishing vessels were backed by China’s CCG vessels that interfered in Taiwan’s CGA vessels’ attempts to expel and remove them.

Later in its press release, the China Coast Guard described this incident as CCG vessels having acceded to requests from Chinese fishermen and driven away Taiwanese CGA patrol vessels.

Other than maritime incursions, in recent months, China has begun showing signs of evolving its coercive activity in the airspace around Kinmen. Per a Taiwanese media report on September 9^th, PLA’s JH-7 and J-10 combat aircraft harassed a Taiwanese medical evacuation plane flying to Kinmen in June, 2025.

While it is not clear yet where exactly this incident occurred, what is important to note is that aircraft flying to Kinmen must transit China’s airspace, and given how normal Taiwanese medical evacuation missions to Kinmen are, this kind of harassment by the PLA fighter jets becomes noteworthy in terms of its potential to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty if such incidents become more frequent going ahead.²

This is because, in political risk terms, such an eventuality may compel Taiwan to consider countering the PLA’s harassment of its medical evacuation missions by escorting them with its own warplanes which could also entail transits inside China’s airspace, thereby increasing the avenues for escalation of cross-strait tensions.

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