Is China Testing the Limits of a More Permissive Strategic Environment?
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This article was first published by the Research Institute for Peace and Security on September 30, 2026.
In the first eight months of 2026, China has escalated coercive activity at multiple points along much of the first island chain, from the Senkaku Islands through the waters around Taiwan to Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Each flashpoint has its own logic. Together, however, they raise an important question: is Beijing simply continuing a long-term trajectory of incremental coercion, or is it also exploiting a more permissive strategic environment—created both by U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East and by the relative stabilization of U.S.-China relations since the Trump-Xi summit in Busan last October—to increase pressure on U.S. allies and partners? The evidence for the first proposition is unambiguous. The second is plausible, but not yet proven.
The South China Sea has seen some of the sharpest examples of Chinese coercion this year. A series of confrontations began on July 20 at Second Thomas Shoal, where Philippine officials said a Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) inflatable boat came close to the Sierra Madre, the grounded Philippine warship, and Chinese personnel struck a member of the Philippines navy on the head with a wooden baton after two Philippine navy boats approached the Chinese vessel. Four days later, Philippine authorities accused CCG vessels of using water cannons and dangerous maneuvers against Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal, including a vessel carrying a CNN crew. On July 23, the CCG said it had driven away Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal, a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Manila that provocations backed by outside countries would leave the Philippines bearing the "bitter consequences" of its own making.
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