Prof. Chisako Masuo’s research on China’s fishing-fleet mobilisation — work our analysis supported — was honoured in Japan’s I-House journalism awards.

Taiwan's coast guard logged more Chinese government ships in its waters last month than in any month on record. Pressure has stopped being episodic.

Fewer aircraft, more maritime coercion. China's new normal around Taiwan is not de-escalation — it is a switch to the quieter instrument of pressure.

The PLA landed in three places at once during its annual Amphibious Warfare Capstone Exercises, roughly 360 km apart — about Taipei to Kaohsiung — against obstacles matching Taiwan's coast. A rehearsal.

You cannot deter what you cannot see. Countering an invasion of Taiwan can only be stopped if you can see the signals - Taiwan still needs to contribute to the Allied Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance architecture not just rely on it.

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.

AIS spoofing is a skill, and Iran and Russia have been teaching to China. What the PLA learns at Hormuz will surface in the Indo-Pacific.

Like Christmas Day, we woke to find a surprise - our work was being covered by a Youtuber.

Consider the following How much of China's Irregular Warfare can be seen by conventional vessel tracking ? The fleet that matters is often the one not transmitting.

On March 1-3, Chinese Maritime Militia continued to exercise in the East Sea, possibly timed to send a message to the US and Japan.

The abnormal fishing formations cross PLA military theatre boundaries — which points to military planning directed above theatre level. There is nothing local about it. It’s just fishy.

Twice — late 2025 and again in January — up to 2,000 fishing boats formed a wall near the median line. We built the case from AIS and satellite imagery.

Thousands of Chinese fishing boats, massing in large formations that stand hundreds of KM in the East Sea. Fleets cluster where fish are; they do not hold angles.

Twice — late 2025 and again in January — up to 2,000 fishing boats in formation in the East Sea We built the case from AIS and satellite imagery.

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.

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's new landing barges relieve the constraint every Taiwan invasion assessment rests on: putting heavy vehicles ashore without first taking a port.