Taiwan’s Coast Guard expelled four Chinese coast guard ships from restricted waters around Kinmen on Friday after a roughly two-hour standoff, the most direct maritime confrontation in the Taiwan Strait approaches on the eve of the island’s National Day celebrations.
The Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch said the vessels entered at 9:10 a.m. and withdrew by 11:13 a.m., approaching in two pairs from the southwest and east of Liaoluo. Patrol boats took forward positions, broadcast departure orders in English and Mandarin, and kept one Taiwanese craft alongside each Chinese hull despite rough seas, according to accounts carried by Taiwan’s Central News Agency and United Daily News.
Which ships were involved
The branch identified the Chinese formation as hull numbers 14529, 14531, 14607 and 14608, tracked by the 12th Patrol District. Officials did not report weapons fire or injuries. The encounter stayed in the gray zone between routine incursion and open conflict, but it was unusually sustained for a single morning near Kinmen, which sits just kilometres from the Chinese coast.
In a statement, the Coast Guard Administration pledged round-the-clock surveillance through the Double Ten holiday weekend, warning that Beijing might use the celebrations for harassment and cognitive warfare. Taiwan has seen a steady rise in coast guard and naval activity since 2020; October has become a sensitive window because Beijing objects to Taipei’s national day symbolism.
Air and sea pressure on the same day
The maritime incident unfolded alongside a separate Chinese military show of force. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it detected 19 People’s Liberation Army aircraft after 8:52 a.m., including 13 that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, flying with navy vessels under what Beijing calls a “joint combat readiness patrol.”
Taiwan scrambled its own aircraft, dispatched ships and activated coastal missile systems to track the movements. Beijing maintains it has the right to operate around Taiwan because it claims the island as Chinese territory; Taipei treats the median line as a stabilising boundary even though China has eroded it in recent years.
Political backdrop
President Lai Ching-te is scheduled to deliver his national day address on Saturday. Briefings to Taiwanese media indicate he will argue that higher defence spending is not provocation but a bid to preserve democratic life—a message aimed at both domestic audiences and partners watching US-China dialogue.
Friday’s Kinmen expulsion gives that speech a fresh security footnote. Analysts in Taipei said Beijing may be testing whether Taiwan’s coast guard can respond simultaneously to multiple vectors—maritime incursions near offshore islands and larger air packages near the main island—without pulling assets away from the Penghu chain.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately comment on the Kinmen encounter. The Coast Guard said it would publish additional tracking data if the patrol pattern continues through the holiday.