China drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone | China

China is drilling for oil and gasoline inside Taiwan’s unique financial zone (EEZ), a transfer that analysts imagine is probably going a part of Beijing’s unilateral seize for disputed territory that might additionally support a future invasion of Taiwan.Throughout July and August a minimum of 12 oil and gasoline vessels and everlasting constructions have been detected inside Taiwan’s EEZ – together with one inside 50km of the restricted-waters border of the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands – in addition to a number of metal helps for fastened offshore drilling platforms, referred to as jackets. Their presence inside Taiwan’s EEZ haven’t been beforehand reported.Specialists mentioned the exercise match the sample of Beijing’s “greyzone” methods for seizing disputed territory. Beijing claims the whole lot of the South China Sea, regardless of The Hague ruling the declare illegal in 2016. Beijing additionally claims Taiwan is a province of China, and in preparation to forcibly annexe it has ramped up a marketing campaign of “salami slicing” Taiwan’s territory, forcibly shrinking the area that Taipei can management and defend.“China’s greyzone aggression routinely leverages industrial exercise for expansionist objectives,” mentioned Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency venture at Stanford College.The presence of Chinese language vessels and constructions within the EEZ was first recognized in analysis revealed on Tuesday by US thinktank the Jamestown Basis, which mentioned they have been owned by the state-run China Nationwide Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC).Nevertheless, there isn’t a signal of the Taiwan authorities having responded to it, regardless of steadily imposing its EEZ elsewhere.The obvious lack of response has stunned analysts. “Failure to protest right now dangers normalising sovereignty shaving and encourages additional encroachment,” the Jamestown report warned.The property are giant – together with a minimum of one vessel measuring greater than 240m lengthy with decks equal to 1.5 soccer fields, and two of the biggest wellhead platforms in Asia. The report discovered some had been there for a minimum of 5 years, with one coming inside a kilometre of the Pratas restricted-waters border in 2024. The Guardian has independently positioned a lot of the property utilizing civilian maritime monitoring web sites.At the least 12 Chinese language owned oil and gasoline exploration constructions have been detected inside Taiwan’s unique financial zone, together with this everlasting deep water drilling platform, believed to be one of many greatest in Asia, captured by radar imagery in August 2025. {Photograph}: UmbraChallenging the oil and gasoline exercise in Taiwan’s EEZ can be troublesome. Taiwan’s political standing meant it’s not social gathering to the UN conference on the regulation of the ocean (Unclos) or its arbitration mechanisms. Home regulation about which components of the EEZ border Taiwan enforces is unclear and it doesn’t have the maritime energy to problem such exercise.“My guess is that Taipei lacked capabilities to reply, and that explains why they didn’t,” mentioned Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program on the US-based German Marshall Fund.“Maybe they underestimated how in depth it might be.”CNOOC describes itself as “one of many largest unbiased oil and gasoline exploration and manufacturing corporations on the earth”. It engages in quite a few joint ventures with overseas corporations, together with with Taiwan’s CPC, though Taiwan’s ministry mentioned there are at present no lively contracts.However as a state-owned agency, it additionally works within the pursuits of Beijing’s political ambitions. In 2012, CNOOC’s chair, Wang Yilin, mentioned in a speech: “Massive-scale deep-water rigs are our cellular nationwide territory and a strategic weapon,” in line with the Wall Avenue Journal.CNOOC was approached for remark.Prof Zhu Feng, from the Tsinghua College’s centre for worldwide safety and technique, mentioned China’s oil and gasoline exploration was “primarily pushed by its present power wants” and was not meant to additional escalate territorial disputes.“Quite it displays China’s sturdy stance in safeguarding its claimed rights and pursuits within the area,” Zhu instructed the Guardian.Such exercise has beforehand drawn the ire of different governments.This week Japan’s authorities accused Beijing of positioning 21 drilling rigs contained in the Japanese EEZ, in an alleged “unilateral” effort to develop gasoline fields in disputed waters of the East China Sea and probably extract gasoline from the Japanese facet.The Jamestown report warned that constructions just like the jackets additionally had potential for twin use by China’s navy, and “may facilitate a full vary of coercion, blockade, bombardment and/or invasion situations in opposition to Pratas or Taiwan extra typically”.Within the 5 years since these property have been first moved into the EEZ, Beijing has ramped up a marketing campaign to weaken Taiwan’s management over its territorial area, with navy drills and incursions, and coast guard patrols within the restricted waters round Taiwan’s offshore islands.“China has been steadily overwhelming Taiwan’s defences with aggressions a lot nearer their shores, which can make this one thing they’d merely quite not must take care of,” Powell mentioned.“Usually governments don’t publicly reply to aggressions in the event that they assume making such complaints would beg the query of what else they will do about it.”The Guardian contacted Taiwan’s nationwide safety council for remark. It additionally contacted the ministry of financial affairs, which referred most inquiries to Taiwan’s ocean affairs council. The council declined to remark. Taiwan’s coast guard mentioned it “maintains steady monitoring of maritime targets inside its surveillance space” however that oil drilling exploration and cooperations have been exterior its remit.China’s ministry of overseas affairs didn’t reply to a faxed request for remark.Extra analysis by Lillian Yang and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu