Since September 2020, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has published daily reports on People's Liberation Army activity around the island: aircraft entering Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), crossings of the Taiwan Strait median line, and naval vessels operating in the surrounding waters. About this tracker ↓
78 PLA aircraft in Taiwan's ADIZ were reported in the seven days through September 21, 2026 — against an all-time weekly median of 32 (41 over the past twelve months). That places the current week in the 87th percentile of every week since September 2020.
Levels are percentiles of the rolling seven-day total across the whole record: low below the 25th, normal to the 75th, elevated to the 90th, surge above it.
Is this week unusual, or the new normal? One week says little on its own: the yearly totals show how far the baseline has moved since Taiwan began publishing in 2020. Each year opens its monthly totals, its busiest days and the incidents behind the spikes.
This tracker is updated daily. Get the week's activity, losses, deliveries and inventory changes in one email every Monday. 1,756 updates logged in the last 30 days.
| Phase | Daily average | Peak day | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Pressure begins Sep 2020 – Jul 2022 Daily average 2.6 · peak day 56 (Oct 4, 2021) · 1,767 total Taiwan's ministry of defense starts publishing daily reports in September 2020. PLA incursions into the southwest corner of the ADIZ become routine, punctuated by surges around political dates such as the record 56-aircraft day of October 2021. | Oct 4, 2021 | 1,767 | |
| 2. The Pelosi rupture Aug 2022 – Dec 2023 Daily average 5.4 · peak day 54 (Apr 10, 2023) · 2,816 total After US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's August 2022 visit to Taipei, the PLA encircles the island with live-fire exercises and begins crossing the Taiwan Strait median line almost daily, erasing the tacit buffer that had held for decades. | Apr 10, 2023 | 2,816 | |
| 3. The encirclement era Jan 2024 – Dec 2025 Daily average 9.4 · peak day 111 (Oct 14, 2024) · 6,837 total The Joint Sword and Strait Thunder exercises rehearse blockading Taiwan outright, setting the all-time record of 153 aircraft detected around Taiwan in one day in October 2024, 111 of them in the ADIZ — while the ministry stops identifying individual aircraft types in its reports. | Oct 14, 2024 | 6,837 | |
| 4. The 2026 pullback Jan 2026 – present Daily average 5.3 · peak day 32 (Feb 12, 2026) · 1,410 total Air activity halves with no agreed explanation — analysts point to PLA purges, political timing or a deliberate shift in tactics — while naval and coast guard presence around the island holds at surge-era levels. | Feb 12, 2026 | 1,410 |
| Zone | Aircraft | Share | Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest ADIZ | 6,757 | 54% | Sep 2020 |
| Median line crossings | 4,689 | 37% | Sep 2020 |
| Northeast ADIZ | 732 | 6% | Aug 2022 |
| Eastern ADIZ | 377 | 3% | Nov 2022 |
| Southern ADIZ and unspecified | 53 | <1% | Sep 2020 |
| Type | Category | Aircraft | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| J-16 | Fighter | 1,323 | 29% |
| J-10 | Fighter | 611 | 13% |
| SU-30 | Fighter | 486 | 11% |
| Y-8 ASW | ASW | 472 | 10% |
| J-11 | Fighter | 416 | 9% |
| H-6 | Bomber | 191 | 4% |
| Y-8 EW | EW | 165 | 4% |
| Y-8 RECCE | RECCE | 146 | 3% |
| KJ-500 | AEW&C | 122 | 3% |
| BZK-005 | RECCE | 116 | 3% |
| Z-9 ASW | ASW | 88 | 2% |
| JH-7 | Attack | 80 | 2% |
| Y-8 ELINT | ELINT | 49 | 1% |
| H-6K | Bomber | 39 | 1% |
| Year | Identified | Total reported | Share identified |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 0 | 1,410 | 0% |
| 2025 | 0 | 3,762 | 0% |
| 2024 | 18 | 3,075 | 1% |
| 2023 | 1,703 | 1,703 | 100% |
| 2022 | 1,738 | 1,738 | 100% |
| 2021 | 972 | 972 | 100% |
| 2020 | 149 | 170 | 88% |
| Date | ADIZ aircraft | Aircraft detected | PLAN ships | Gov ships | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 14, 2024 | 111 | 153 | 14 | — | China's Joint Sword-2024B drills set single-day record of 153 aircraft around Taiwan |
| Dec 29, 2025 | 90 | 130 | 14 | 8 | China's Justice Mission-2025 blockade drills bring record air activity and rocket fire near Taiwan |
| Oct 4, 2021 | 56 | — | — | — | China sends record 149 aircraft into Taiwan's ADIZ over four days, peaking at 56 on October 4 |
| Jul 10, 2024 | 56 | 66 | 7 | — | — |
| Apr 10, 2023 | 54 | 91 | 12 | — | China launches Joint Sword exercises encircling Taiwan after Tsai-McCarthy meeting |
Taiwan's Cabinet on September 3, 2026 approved a NT$145.7 billion (US$4.6 billion) defense allocation within a NT$607.63 billion supplementary budget, covering two classified programs, three uncrewed-systems programs and the Chiang Kung anti-ballistic missile system, pending a legislative vote.
President Lai Ching-te's government will ask the Legislative Yuan for NT$1.1225 trillion ($35.2 billion) in defense spending for 2027, the first Taiwanese military budget above NT$1 trillion and the first to exceed 3 percent of GDP.
Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan's air defense identification zone fell 52 percent in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period of 2025, according to Taiwan's daily defense ministry reports — while PLA Navy vessel sightings dropped just 7 percent.
Since September 2020, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has published daily reports on People's Liberation Army activity around the island: aircraft entering Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), crossings of the Taiwan Strait median line, and naval vessels operating in the surrounding waters. This sustained gray-zone pressure campaign, punctuated by large-scale exercises encircling the island, is tracked here through daily activity metrics and notable incidents.
Detailed statistics: Taiwan ADIZ Violations — Statistics by Year and Month
Over the seven days through September 21, 2026, 78 were reported — above the all-time weekly median of 32, which puts the current week in the 87th percentile of every week on record and rates activity as elevated.
The Southwest ADIZ accounts for 54% of all activity broken down by area (6,757 of 12,608), far ahead of the other zones. Median line: 37%. Northeast: 6%. Eastern: 3%.
Over the 30 days through September 21, 2026, 150 were recorded, down from 179 in the previous 30 days. The single-day record is 111 on October 14, 2024.
An air defense identification zone (ADIZ) is airspace in which a country requires incoming aircraft to identify themselves; it is not sovereign airspace. Taiwan's ministry of defense reports daily on PLA aircraft it tracks inside its de facto ADIZ, the zone bounded to the west by the Taiwan Strait median line. Aircraft counted here have not violated Taiwanese territorial airspace, but sustained incursions force Taiwan to scramble interceptors and wear down its air force.
The median line is an informal boundary running down the middle of the Taiwan Strait, tacitly respected by both sides for decades. Since August 2022 the PLA has crossed it almost daily, eroding it as a buffer: crossings that were rare events before 2020 now involve dozens of aircraft during large exercises.
Daily figures are compiled from the official reports published by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense; each covers a 0600–0600 Taiwan-time window, credited to the day it began. The historical zone and aircraft-type detail comes from the PLATracker compilation (Gerald C. Brown & Benjamin Lewis) of the same reports. Incidents are logged individually with a date and a public source link. The tracker is updated daily.
Daily monitoring covers 2,204 days since September 2020, with 12,830 aircraft recorded by the primary series over that span.