Global Situation Board
Actor · state · Indo-Pacific & South Asia

China (Xi / CCP / PLA)

3Elevated
Assessed 15 September 2026

Assessment

China ran a live-fire joint air-naval drill at Scarborough Shoal on Sept 2 in which armed JL-10 trainers intercepted a Philippine aircraft, keeps coast-guard patrols rotating east of Taiwan on roughly 30-day cycles, and a CSIS study reported on Sept 13 found its coast guard had radio-queried nearly 200 commercial ships transiting the Philippine Sea. Xi attended the BRICS summit in New Delhi on Sept 12 and 13, meeting Modi in the first such bilateral on Indian soil in seven years ahead of a Sept 24 Washington summit, while PLA Daily articles on Sept 13 and 14 pressed civil-military mobilisation and the PLA high command remains thinned by the removal of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli on Aug 28.

Recent, assessed

  • 2026-09-14PLA Daily publishes articles on Sept 13 and 14 urging the mobilisation of civilian resources for military use and the role of civilian entities in information and cognitive 'control warfare', per AEI's China and Taiwan Update. aei.org

Level history

Threat level after each research review12 September 2026 baseline: level 3; 12 September 2026 weekly review: level 3; 14 September 2026 weekly review: level 3; 15 September 2026 weekly review: level 31234512 September 2026, baseline: level 312 September 2026, weekly review: level 314 September 2026, weekly review: level 315 September 2026, weekly review: level 312 Sep14 Sep15 Septoday

Levels set by research reviews. A level set by hand is shown at the top of the page while it is in force and is not part of this history.

DateLevelReview
2026-09-153Weekly review
2026-09-143Weekly review
2026-09-123Weekly review
2026-09-123Baseline

Latest headlines 26

Matched to this entry by keyword from the pull of 19 Sep, 11:09 UTC. Not reviewed; some may be off-topic.