Why Taiwan’s idyllic eastern outlying islands are increasingly crucial in its defence calculus
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Taiwan's Second Theatre Command conducted military drills on Green Island and Orchid Island on July 16 for the first time in 30 years, rehearsing land-sea equipment transport and defensive positions to repel a surprise attack.
- China began staging "special maritime traffic law enforcement" operations east of Taiwan starting in June, including two coast guard vessels detected east of Orchid Island on July 31 — one drifting 80km northeast — and a June 7 incident in which the coast guard first radioed passing merchant ships for crew and destination details.
- Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo likened Beijing's behavior to "casting a large spider's web over the area," while Taiwan's coast guard accused China of "fake law enforcement, real expansion of power."
- Chieh Chung, a military analyst at Tamkang University, said Green Island or Orchid Island could become "forward operating bases for [Chinese] helicopter units" to reinforce troops on Taiwan's main island, citing China's December 2025 deployment of a 40,000-tonne Type 075 landing helicopter dock southeast of Taiwan.
- Orchid Island sits at the northern edge of the Bashi Channel, a maritime choke point linking the South China Sea to the Western Pacific, making Taiwan's eastern ports and sea lines of communication vital for evacuation, military logistics and external support in a crisis, per Zack Liao of the China Strategic Risks Institute.
- Green Island residents — cafe owner Pan Hsin-chieh, 29, and scooter-rental operator Wu Shu-feng, 54 — brushed off the military developments, with Wu saying she has become "quite numb" to invasion threats after living under them "too long."
Why it matters: Taiwan's July 16 drills — its first on Green and Orchid Islands in 30 years — reflect a strategic pivot as China's coast guard pushes patrols east of the island. Analysts cited by The Straits Times say the islands could serve as helicopter forward operating bases and that Orchid Island's Bashi Channel position gives Beijing leverage over Taiwan's wartime logistics corridors and external supply lines.
