China Maritime Report #52: Everything Everywhere All At Once — The Growing Complexity of PLA Amphibious Exercises
Main Findings
In August 2025, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) conducted a large-scale exercise to simulate an invasion of Taiwan. This “capstone” amphibious exercise suggests that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) training and preparations for a future Taiwan campaign are becoming more focused, realistic, and sophisticated.
The exercise consolidated elements from previous years into a single simulated operation. It integrated a floating causeway system, anti-landing barriers and obstacles, and amphibious Landing Craft Tank (LCT) vessels that landed forces directly onto beachheads.
For the first time observed, the PLA conducted a phased exercise with simultaneous amphibious landings in three distinct locations. Exercise areas incorporated civilian aquaculture obstacles like those expected to be found along Taiwan’s coastline, increasing environmental and tactical realism.
The exercise occurred at simulated “landing locations” opposite Taiwan, particularly within the Zhangzhou-Xiamen-Quanzhou littoral zone. The locations were distributed at distance intervals comparable to likely wartime beachheads along Taiwan’s western coastline. The total distance between discrete exercise locations was approximately 360 kilometers, roughly the distance between Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Not merely hypothetical in nature, the exercise reflected a specific geographical and operational focus. It appears to be part of a larger trend whereby the PLA is mapping its exercises onto analogous geography that reflects envisioned targets.
Future research should explore the potential applications and implications of PLA efforts to train with similar distances and geometries as would be found in prospective conflict zones.
Starting this summer, observers should scrutinize future capstone amphibious exercises to better understand the PLA’s strengths, weaknesses, and underlying operational assumptions.
See How China Is Gaining Power in Contested Waters - Chinese fishing vessels pushed within 150 miles of a U.S. naval base in Japan last month, the latest maneuver in a decades long campaign
About 200 Chinese fishing boats—part of China’s state-directed maritime fleet—recently pushed further east in the Yellow Sea. Some came within 150 miles of the Japanese city of Sasebo, home to a core U.S. naval base, according to ship-tracking data provided by geospatial analysis firm ingeniSPACE and verified by The Wall Street Journal.
China Just Tested Its Invisible Navy… And No One Noticed
Like Christmas Day, we woke to find a surprise - our work was being covered by a Youtuber.
中国漁船1200隻、東シナ海で反転「L字型」隊列 3月1～3日、米国排除へ準備行動か
On March 1-3, Chinese Maritime Militia continued a new exercise in the East Sea, replicating recent mass mobilizations possibly time to send a message to the US and Japan
Thousands Of Chinese Boats Mass At Sea, Raising Questions
"We've seen like two, 300, up to a thousand (Chinese fishing boats congregate), but anything exceeding a thousand I thought was unusual."
Maritime and military experts told AFP the massing of Chinese fishing boats on December 25, about 300 kilometres northeast of Taiwan, was on a scale they had never seen before.
Another incident detected in early January involved around 1,000 Chinese fishing vessels clustered in an uneven rectangle, about 400 kilometres long, for more than a day in the same area of the East China Sea.
Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers
China quietly mobilized thousands of fishing boats twice in recent weeks to form massive floating barriers of at least 200 miles long, showing a new level of coordination that could give Beijing more ways to impose control in contested seas.
The two recent operations unfolded largely unnoticed. An analysis of ship-tracking data by The New York Times reveals the scale and complexity of the maneuvers for the first time.
Last week, about 1,400 Chinese vessels abruptly dropped their usual fishing activities or sailed out of their home ports and congregated in the East China Sea. By Jan. 11, they had assembled into a rectangle stretching more than 200 miles. The formation was so dense that some approaching cargo ships appeared to skirt around them or had to zigzag through, ship-tracking data showed.
Rigging the Game: PRC Oil Structures Encroach on Taiwan’s Pratas (Dongsha) Island
Beijing’s relentless pressure on Taiwan now includes oil rigs: twelve permanent or semi-permanent structures and dozens of associated ships. The structures, which are owned by state-owned firm CNOOC, include seven rig structures, three floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, and two semi-submersible oil platforms. All are located within Taiwan’s claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Pratas/Dongsha Island.
China has debuted its new landing barges
Just to their right, a line of strange looking ships loom in the mist. The enormous ships are unmoving, raised above the waves by thick pylons. Drop-down bridges connect them to each other, the front one extending down to the sand. Jason Wang, chief executive of Ingenispace, a geospatial analysis company, said the ships were a clear sign of China’s “creativity…They can produce the ships really fast – four to six months – and get them into theatre,” Wang said. “They can also iterate improvements faster than everybody else.”