TAIPEI, November 10, 2026 — Taiwan’s defence minister says China is conducting anti-access/area-denial drills across the Western Pacific involving the Liaoning aircraft carrier group and other naval formations, describing a deployment that could complicate the ability of outside forces to operate in the region during a conflict.
Wellington Koo said Taiwan was monitoring the activity and sharing intelligence with partners. Beijing has not publicly announced a new exercise under the anti-access/area-denial label. Its previous public explanation for Liaoning’s Western Pacific training was that the carrier group was carrying out routine exercises to test long-range, open-ocean combat capabilities and was not directed at any particular country.
Koo’s assessment, reported by Reuters on Tuesday, places the Liaoning carrier group within a broader set of Chinese naval formations operating in the Western Pacific. Anti-access/area-denial, often shortened to A2AD, describes military capabilities intended to make it harder for an opposing force to enter or operate in a contested area. The concept can involve ships, aircraft, missiles, sensors, air defences and other systems working together, but the public account of the latest activity does not identify a complete order of battle or a specific exercise scenario.
The distinction between an A2AD capability and a formally announced drill is important. Taiwan’s minister is describing the purpose he believes the Chinese formations are rehearsing. That is an assessment by a government that regards the deployments as a security threat, not an official Chinese description of the exercise. The available reporting does not establish that Beijing has declared a new operation or that the vessels are preparing for an immediate confrontation.
Taiwan’s National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu said on November 3 that more than 100 Chinese navy and coast guard vessels were operating across a wide area of the Western Pacific. Taiwan News reported that the deployment included the Liaoning carrier group in the Philippine Sea and other formations operating in waters around the region. The figure covers a much wider maritime area than the waters immediately around Taiwan and should not be treated as a count of ships surrounding the island at one moment.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense publishes daily reports of Chinese aircraft and vessels detected around the island. In its November 9 update, the ministry recorded one Chinese military aircraft sortie, seven naval vessels and one official ship around Taiwan. That narrower daily count should not be compared directly with the broader figure cited by the National Security Council: the two reports use different geographic scopes and describe different categories of activity.
The Liaoning is China’s first operational aircraft carrier and has been used in training beyond the waters close to the mainland. A carrier group can include escorting destroyers, frigates and support vessels, allowing the navy to practise air operations, maritime surveillance and coordination at greater distances from home ports. The presence of a carrier does not, by itself, prove that an operation is directed at Taiwan or that an attack is imminent.
Taiwan says it is watching the formations and sharing intelligence with allies. The island’s military has increased its attention to activity east of Taiwan because those waters connect the island to the wider Pacific and could be important to any attempt to reinforce it during a crisis. A deployment that tests coordination across the First Island Chain can therefore matter even if individual ships remain outside Taiwan’s territorial waters.
A2AD is not a single weapon or a single manoeuvre. It is a military approach that combines surveillance, command systems and weapons to raise the cost of an opposing force entering a region. In a potential conflict, the objective could be to hold aircraft carriers, supply ships and air bases at risk from a distance, disrupt communications or make it difficult for an outside military to move reinforcements through contested waters.
For the United States and its allies, the concern is that a dense network of sensors, aircraft, ships and long-range weapons could reduce the freedom to operate near a conflict zone. A carrier group is valuable because it can project air power and support operations far from its home base, but it is also a large formation that must be protected and supplied. The ability to track it, threaten its escorts or challenge its aircraft can affect how commanders plan to deploy other forces.
The Western Pacific is a particularly important theatre because it contains major sea lanes and the island chains that shape access between the East China Sea, South China Sea and the open Pacific. The First Island Chain is a geographic term commonly used for the arc of islands stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines. It is not a formal boundary recognised by all governments, but it is frequently used in military analysis to describe the maritime space in which China and the United States plan their operations.
The latest deployment also comes after Taiwan reported an increase in Chinese maritime activity beyond the immediate Taiwan Strait. In late October, Taiwan’s National Security Council said the Liaoning carrier group and other Chinese vessels were operating east of the First Island Chain. Taiwan News and Focus Taiwan reported the government’s warning that the movements could affect Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Those reports provide context for Koo’s latest description, but they do not establish that every vessel movement was part of one coordinated exercise.
Also read: Taiwan Accuses China of Harassing Shipping as Coast Guard Patrols Expand
Beijing’s previous public position was that the Liaoning’s Western Pacific training was routine and intended to test the navy’s ability to operate over long distances. China has repeatedly said its military activities are lawful and has criticised what it describes as foreign interference in its sovereignty claims over Taiwan. The Chinese government has not renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, while Taiwan rejects Beijing’s claim and says its future must be decided by its people.
The gap between the two accounts is central to the current dispute. Taiwan views the deployment as part of a pattern of military pressure and preparation for operations that could isolate the island. Beijing presents its exercises as normal training and a response to what it sees as separatism and outside interference. Neither position alone establishes the operational intent of the latest movements.
The timing places the activity in a sensitive diplomatic period. China is preparing to host the APEC leaders’ summit in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19, and US President Donald Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the gathering. The expected meeting could create an opportunity for discussion of trade and security, but there is no public evidence that the carrier deployment was ordered to influence the summit or that the two events are directly connected.
For Japan and the Philippines, the wider deployment matters because their waters and air approaches are part of the same maritime geography. Taiwan’s account of more than 100 Chinese naval and coast guard vessels covered a broad area extending from waters near Japan to the Philippine Sea. A prolonged presence can require neighbouring governments to devote more surveillance and response resources to tracking ships, aircraft and coast guard vessels.
The activity also raises questions about how a crisis could affect commercial shipping. The current reports do not describe a blockade, a closure of sea lanes or an interruption to merchant traffic. But a sustained military presence, overlapping patrols and competing jurisdictional claims can increase uncertainty for ship operators, particularly if communications become unclear or vessels are ordered to change course by different authorities.
Taiwan’s defence planning has increasingly focused on the possibility that pressure could take forms short of a direct invasion. A blockade or quarantine scenario could involve coast guard vessels, maritime inspections, cyber activity and military deployments designed to restrict movement without immediately triggering a conventional war. The latest A2AD assessment is related to the military side of that concern, but it should not be treated as proof that a blockade operation has been ordered.
For the United States, the issue is how to preserve the ability to operate in the Western Pacific while avoiding an incident that could escalate. A2AD capabilities are designed to complicate the movement of outside forces, but they do not make access impossible. The effectiveness of any system depends on intelligence, readiness, logistics, training and the ability of opposing forces to adapt. Public reporting does not provide enough detail to assess how the latest Chinese formations would perform in a real conflict.
The regional military picture also includes cooperation among US allies and partners. India, the United States, Japan and Australia are conducting Exercise Malabar 2026 in waters south of Japan’s Kanto region from November 5 to 12. The exercise is not described by its organisers as a response to the latest Chinese carrier activity, and it does not create a collective-defence commitment. It is relevant as a separate example of the maritime coordination taking place across the Indo-Pacific.
Also read: Malabar 2026: India, US, Japan and Australia Begin Naval Exercise Near Japan
The next indicators will be whether Taiwan publishes further information about the location and composition of the Chinese formations, whether the Liaoning group continues operating in the Western Pacific and whether Beijing provides a new public explanation of the training. Taiwan’s daily defence reports will also show whether aircraft and ships around the island change in number or pattern, although those reports cover a narrower area than the wider deployment described by its National Security Council.
A change in the number of vessels should be interpreted carefully. A carrier group may move between operating areas, escorts may separate from the main formation and support ships may use different routes. A single daily count cannot establish the purpose of the deployment. Analysts will need to combine official notices, imagery, ship-tracking data and statements from the governments involved before drawing conclusions about the exercise.
For now, the confirmed development is Taiwan’s public assessment that China is conducting A2AD drills involving the Liaoning carrier group and other naval formations in the Western Pacific. Beijing has not formally announced such an exercise, and the available information does not show that commercial traffic has been disrupted or that a direct confrontation is under way. The deployment matters because it tests the military environment in which any future Taiwan crisis would unfold, not because it establishes that conflict is imminent.