Will China’s military shake-up undermine its combat readiness?

(Edited and refined by Candice Chan, with the assistance of AI translation.)

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China recently deployed a large number of naval vessels around Taiwan and across the Western Pacific, but did so without its usual high-profile announcements of military exercises surrounding Taiwan. Taiwanese academics interviewed believe the latest deployment could signal a shift in the PLA’s training priorities, from encircling Taiwan to preventing US and Japanese forces from intervening in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan’s National Security Council secretary-general Joseph Wu said in a post on X on 3 November that the PLA Navy and Chinese coast guard had deployed over 100 vessels in the Western Pacific.

In a report released on 6 November, US think tanks the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute suggested that mainland China might be conducting a major, unannounced military exercise that simulates isolating Taiwan, on a scale and geographic range greater than the “Justice Mission 2025” exercises held around the island late last year.

Big moves

The report noted four task forces from three different PLA theatre commands (Eastern, Northern and Southern) operating between Taiwan and Guam, including the Liaoning carrier strike group, with at least six coast guard vessels and an unspecified number of naval ships surrounding Taiwan.

The strike group moved to the West Pacific via the Basilan Strait in the Philippines in late October, and satellite imagery from 2 November detected the aircraft carrier Fujian leaving its base in Sanya, Hainan, although it remained unclear whether it was taking part in the same exercises.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported on 3 November that it had detected 49 sorties by mainland Chinese military aircraft around the Taiwan Strait over the preceding 24 hours, of which 31 entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. Air activity subsequently fell sharply; by 9 November, the ministry reported detecting just one mainland Chinese military aircraft, seven naval vessels and one official ship over the previous 24 hours.

Beijing has yet to confirm whether the latest deployments constitute large-scale military exercises encircling Taiwan, and it remains unclear whether the fleets involved are operating under a unified command. The US think tanks suggested that Beijing might be seeking to represent the presence of its forces surrounding Taiwan and in the West Pacific as routine, so that Taiwan and its neighbours get used to a sustained PLA presence while eroding Taiwan’s confidence in its own defence and the ability of its allies and partners to support it.

Isolating Taiwan?

However, Ding Shuh-fan, professor emeritus at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies in Taiwan, told Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) that he had reservations on whether the latest operation was an exercise in isolating Taiwan.

He noted that most of the vessels identified by secretary-general Wu were operating some distance from Taiwan, spread across the South China Sea, the Western Pacific and waters northeast of the island, so that Taiwan itself might not necessarily be their primary target.

Ding said the PLA had spent the past few years practising how to encircle and blockade Taiwan, and might now have largely completed that phase of training. Its next priority could be to prevent outside military forces from intervening.

He likened this to the Chinese military strategy of surrounding a target while intercepting reinforcements coming to its aid (围点打援).

“The PLA is now shifting its focus to the Western Pacific, looking at how to stop US forces from coming in from that direction,” he said.

Ding stressed, however, that this was only a preliminary assessment based on the positions of the vessels, and that there was not yet enough evidence to establish what the PLA was actually doing.

Mind games and countermeasures

Shen Ming-shih, a research fellow at the Division of National Security Research under Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, also told LHZB that the deployments might be intended to simulate efforts to prevent US and Japanese intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict, while demonstrating the PLA’s long-range anti-access and area-denial capabilities.

Shen believed the PLA deployments might have been partly a response to the “Keen Sword 27” military exercises held by US and Japan from 19 to 29 October, although Beijing appeared to have avoided a direct countermeasure that could heighten the risk of an accidental military confrontation.

He noted that PLA activities in waters east of Taiwan were increasingly extending towards Guam. Besides seeking to deter US and Japanese intervention, the deployments could also be intended to send Washington a warning that its military bases on Guam were within reach.

Shen cautioned that it was still unclear whether the vessels were taking part in a coordinated operation under a single command or conducting separate naval and air activities organised by individual theatre commands.

He added that the scale and intensity of the operation could not be judged by vessel numbers alone. It was equally important to examine how coast guard and naval vessels were grouped and deployed, and whether they were positioned to support one another.

Shen felt this might have to do with Taiwan’s local elections on 28 November, as Beijing might want to demonstrate its military deterrent capabilities without risking a political backlash that a high-profile announcement of military exercises could provoke ahead of the polls.

Keeping the exercises unannounced also gives Beijing greater room for manoeuvre.

As Shen put it, Beijing could “deny at any time that it is conducting an exercise”, while also retaining the option to “turn the exercise into an actual military operation at any moment”.

Such ambiguity might not be enough to evade US and Japanese intelligence surveillance, but it could shorten the time available for those countries to respond if the PLA suddenly launched a military operation.

Ding suggested that the relatively low-key approach might also reflect efforts by Beijing and Washington to maintain a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Military cleanup

Yet a wider geographical deployment does not necessarily translate into stronger combat capabilities, as both academics questioned how effectively the PLA could conduct operations across multiple theatre commands while its military leadership remained in the grip of sweeping personnel purges.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 20th Central Military Commission (CMC) originally had seven members. Following the downfall of five members, including Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, only CMC chairman Xi Jinping and vice-chairman Zhang Shengmin remain.

Zhang Shengmin was elected to the CCP Politburo at the Fifth Plenum on 29 October, but the vacancies in the CMC leadership have yet to be filled. Following the downfall of Liu Zhenli, the former chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, Lieutenant General Zhu Chuansheng has reportedly taken over his duties in an acting capacity.

Ding believed that the vacancies at the top could undermine the PLA’s ability to command joint operations. He was particularly concerned about how far the purges of senior generals had affected the field-grade officers responsible for conducting military exercises, something that outside observers currently have no way of knowing.

He explained that even when new tactics and operational doctrines have been tested through war games, junior and mid-ranking officers still have to put them into practice through field exercises to establish whether they worked.

If the officers responsible for planning, coordinating and carrying out such exercises are themselves caught up in purges, the PLA’s efforts to improve its combat capabilities could suffer.

A show of ability

Ding stressed that the ability to send warships on long-distance deployments is not the same as being able to conduct complex, coordinated operations across multiple theatre commands.

Once logistical challenges have been addressed, sending warships on extended voyages is not especially difficult. What matters is the tactical training the fleets carry out once they reach their destinations, and whether they can coordinate their movements and command structures effectively.

He added that moving naval vessels between theatre commands is nothing new. The real question — which cannot easily be answered from publicly available information — is whether the PLA is becoming capable of conducting increasingly sophisticated joint operations across vast stretches of ocean.

Ding did not rule out the possibility that the military reshuffles had disrupted training, although he emphasised that there was no direct evidence to support such a conclusion.

He suggested that if the CCP still lacked enough experienced senior officers eligible for promotion to full general by the time its 21st Party Congress convened next year, the CMC might have to be reduced in size. This could affect the functioning of the military command structure, although the precise consequences would be difficult to assess.

Shen likewise believed that the ongoing military purges, economic conditions and political manoeuvring ahead of the CCP’s 21st Party Congress could all make Beijing less inclined to launch a major military operation in the near term.

For now, Beijing appears more likely to use large-scale deployments to demonstrate its ability to blockade Taiwan and cut off outside military support, while stopping short of actions that could directly escalate tensions into open conflict.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “解放军大规模部署西太平洋 台学者：演训重心从围台转向阻挡美日”.

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