The Sorties Beijing Chose Not To Fly
The Missing Sorties
China ran two days of live-fire drills off Dongshan Island on July 23 and 24, and most of the coverage filed it as confirmation that Beijing's pressure campaign against Taiwan is accelerating. The number that undercuts that read sits in the same week's reporting and got a fraction of the ink. PLA fighter sorties detected near Taiwan totaled 1,334 in the first half of 2026, down more than half year-on-year from over 5,400 in 2025, per the South China Morning Post's count. That is the lowest tempo since 2023. No large-scale exercise encircled the island in the first six months of the year, the first time that has held since 2022. This desk has argued for months that Beijing's Taiwan strategy is normalization, not invasion. A sortie count cut in half, from over 5,400 to 1,334, is exactly that kind of signal. The Dongshan drills themselves ran inside twelve kilometers of the mainland coast, a fixed 6am-to-6pm window both days, and answered a specific provocation: President Lai Ching-te told his party's convention on July 19 that Taiwan is 'not subordinate to the People's Republic of China.' Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhang Han called the line 'reckless.' A punitive drill answering one speech is not a sustained air campaign, and Beijing knows the difference even when the wire copy does not.
Where The Pressure Moved
The same week Beijing throttled back over Taiwan, it escalated physically against the Philippines three separate times. A China Coast Guard officer struck a Philippine Navy sailor's head with a wooden baton near Second Thomas Shoal on July 20, opening a 1.5-inch wound; three days later a coast guard vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine government ship for more than two minutes near Scarborough Shoal, with a CNN crew filming from the deck. Both governments summoned envoys. Marco Rubio met Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting in Manila on July 22. Rubio raised the Scarborough incident as a 'new and coercive threat.' He also confirmed the groundwork holds for Xi Jinping's Washington visit on September 24. Manila absorbs the physical contact because a water cannon does not carry the same escalation risk with Washington that a fighter intercept near Taiwan does, not with a presidential visit already on the calendar.
What happens to PLA sortie counts and to the pressure on Manila in the two weeks after Xi's September 24 Washington visit concludes will show whether this is Beijing's settled posture or a temporary reallocation. Taiwan's own defense budget stays gridlocked in the legislature, drone funding cuts intact regardless of PLA tempo. A sortie count can fall for two quarters and reverse within days of that visit ending. The specific marker to watch: whether Coast Guard activity near Scarborough Shoal resumes or intensifies once the September 24 summit is behind Beijing.
Sources
- PLA jet sorties near Taiwan fell to 3-year low in H1 2026 (scmp.com)
- PLA ran 2 days of live-fire drills after Lai's 'reckless' speech (scmp.com)
- Wang and Rubio discuss Xi's planned US visit, South China Sea clash at ASEAN (scmp.com)
- China fires water cannon at Philippine vessel with CNN crew aboard near Scarborough Shoal (cnn.com)
- Philippine Navy sailor injured by CCG baton strike near Ayungin Shoal (philstar.com)
- Lai Ching-te's DPP convention speech: Taiwan 'not subordinate' to PRC (rappler.com)