China Deploys Warships and Drones to Monitor US-Japan Military Drills Near Taiwan
The PLA's surveillance of Keen Sword 25 signals that Beijing treats joint allied exercises focused on Taiwan contingencies as direct intelligence-gathering targets.
China deployed military aircraft, spy drones, and naval vessels to observe the Keen Sword 25 joint exercises conducted by the United States and Japan in waters off the Japanese archipelago, according to a report published October 20, 2026, by the South China Morning Post.
Japan's Ministry of Defense confirmed that three People's Liberation Army aircraft, including two drones and one reconnaissance plane, flew through international airspace between Japanese islands into the Pacific Ocean before returning. The ministry said the flights occurred in recent days as the Keen Sword exercises commenced.
Among the naval assets observed was a PLA supply ship assessed by Japanese officials as capable of providing logistical support to the Liaoning, China's first operational aircraft carrier. The presence of a carrier-capable support vessel in the region during allied exercises is a development that military analysts say reflects an expansion of China's at-sea monitoring capacity compared to earlier years.
Keen Sword is a biennial exercise conducted by the United States and Japan under the terms of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. The 2026 edition, like its immediate predecessors, is reported by the South China Morning Post to include scenarios focused on a potential Taiwan contingency, a framing that Beijing has consistently objected to in public statements from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has characterized such exercises as destabilizing to regional peace, arguing that rehearsals for a Taiwan contingency constitute interference in what Beijing defines as an internal matter. The Taiwan Strait remains contested: the United States does not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state but is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to provide Taiwan with defensive arms and to treat any non-peaceful resolution of its status as a matter of grave concern.
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance of allied exercises represents a documented shift in PLA operational practice. China has expanded its drone fleet significantly over the past decade, and incursions into airspace between Japanese islands, while conducted in international airspace, have drawn formal diplomatic protests from Tokyo on multiple occasions, according to Japanese Defense Ministry records.
Japan's Self-Defense Forces have been increasing their own surveillance and response capabilities in parallel. The Japanese government passed a revised National Security Strategy in December 2022 that authorized the acquisition of counterstrike capabilities for the first time since World War II, a policy shift driven in part by concerns about both Chinese and North Korean military activities in surrounding waters, as documented in Japan's 2023 Defense White Paper.
The Liaoning carrier group's proximity to allied exercises, if confirmed through further official statements, would mark a notable escalation in the scale of China's observation activities. Japan's Defense Ministry has not confirmed the Liaoning itself was present, only that a supply ship capable of supporting it was identified in the area. What vessel the supply ship was actively supporting, if any, is not stated in available public records.
The exercises occur against a broader backdrop of increased PLA activity near Japan. Japan's Joint Staff reported that it scrambled fighter jets a record 669 times in fiscal year 2023, the majority in response to Chinese aircraft, according to Japan's Ministry of Defense annual statistics.
The United States has not issued a separate public statement on the Chinese surveillance activity as of the date of publication. What any such statement would say, and whether it would affect the conduct or scope of the remaining exercises, is unknown pending official comment from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.