On September 29 the China Coast Guard announced that a task group led by the cutter Zhujiajian had carried out “routine law-enforcement patrols” in the waters east of Taiwan. The announcement added a detail that matters more than the patrol itself. The group, Beijing said, had been “strengthening control” over those waters since the start of September.

Taiwan’s coast guard had been watching. Its cutter Lanyu shadowed two Chinese ships, the Zhujiajian (hull 2503) and the Chongming (1401), and placed them roughly 97 nautical miles northeast of Green Island and 146 nautical miles east of Lanyu. Far from the Strait. Far from Fujian. On the Pacific side of the island, where Taiwan’s east-coast ports and air bases face open water.

The agreement reached between the United States and the Philippines in 2023, expanding American access to four additional Philippine military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, was one of the most strategically significant military basing decisions in the western Pacific since the 1991 closure of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station. The locations matter more than the number. One of the four new sites is in Cagayan province on the northern tip of Luzon — the closest Philippine territory to Taiwan, roughly 200 miles from the southern end of the island. American forces with access to this location have a forward operating position that changes the geometry of any Taiwan contingency response.