Taiwan deployed fighter jets, warships, and coastal missile batteries Monday after China pushed a large-scale combat patrol within striking distance of the island, the second such provocation in a single week and a sharp escalation that came just days after a Trump-Xi summit in Beijing.

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense reported detecting 29 People's Liberation Army aircraft sorties, seven PLA Navy vessels, and one additional official ship operating around the island by 6 a.m. local time on May 26. Twenty-four of those 29 sorties crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and penetrated Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone from four directions, north, central, southwest, and east.

Chinese warships armed with cruise missiles sailed as close as 24 nautical miles from Taiwan's coastline, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported, citing Reuters and Su Tzu-yun, director of Taiwan's Institute for National Defence and Security Research. That distance is barely beyond the 12-nautical-mile limit of Taiwan's territorial waters, a proximity that leaves almost no margin for miscalculation.

A pattern, not an incident

Taiwan's National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu framed the operation as deliberate intimidation. He posted on X:

"For the 2nd time in a week, shortly after the #Beijing summit, the #PLA conducted a 'joint combat readiness patrol' around #Taiwan. We also spotted the #Liaoning carrier group in the West Pacific. This is unprovoked. The #PRC is the sole source of instability in the #IndoPacific."

Wu had earlier reported that China deployed more than 100 ships along the First Island Chain, a string of strategic chokepoints in the South China Sea that control key Asian shipping lanes, on Saturday. The Liaoning carrier group, China's most prominent aircraft carrier, had already conducted a live-fire training drill in the western Pacific on May 19.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense confirmed the military response in a press release, stating that "ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy ships, and coastal missile systems in response to detected activities." The ministry also published images showing two Chinese fighter jets flying in formation with a larger aircraft, alongside a Chinese warship.

The Beijing summit and its aftermath

President Trump visited Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 14 for talks covering trade negotiations, the Strait of Hormuz, and Taiwan. A senior administration official said afterward that "Xi Jinping has assured President Trump that China will not invade Taiwan, guaranteeing a free and open Indo-Pacific for the rest of the President's term in office."

That assurance looks different when measured against what Beijing's military has done in the twelve days since. The first "joint combat readiness patrol" came shortly after the summit. The Liaoning's live-fire drill followed five days later. Then came the 100-ship deployment along the First Island Chain. And now, 29 aircraft sorties punching through the median line from every compass point.

The pattern raises a question that the unnamed senior official's reassuring quote does not answer: If Xi promised restraint, what does China's military think it is doing?

Tensions in the region have been building for months. A standoff between Chinese and Japanese fighter jets in December saw Chinese jets lock their radars onto Japanese aircraft, a provocative act in any military context, with the Liaoning carrier also involved in that episode.

Arms sale pause complicates the picture

Compounding Taiwan's security concerns, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao told a Senate subcommittee that the United States had postponed a planned arms sale to Taiwan. Cao attributed the delay to supply constraints caused by Operation Epic Fury, a U.S. military operation whose details remain largely undisclosed.

Cao told senators:

"It's just right now we're doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury, which we have plenty, but we are just making sure we have everything, but then the foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary."

The acting secretary also disclosed that the U.S. military had not "spoken to the Taiwanese" about the decision to postpone. That detail is significant. Taiwan learned it was losing, at least temporarily, a weapons pipeline at the same moment China was ratcheting up military pressure on its doorstep.

The broader context of U.S. military commitments in the Middle East, including the recent confrontation with Iranian tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, illustrates the strain on American defense resources that Cao was describing. Operation Epic Fury's supply demands are apparently large enough to force a pause in foreign military sales, even to a partner facing active Chinese military encirclement.

In a Fox News interview on May 15, one day after the Beijing summit, President Trump referred to the weapons package as a good "negotiating chip" for the United States. That framing suggests the administration views the arms sale not purely as a defense commitment but as leverage in broader dealings with Beijing.

What Taiwan faces alone, for now

The numbers tell a stark story. In a single operation detected before dawn on Monday, China flew 29 aircraft sorties around the island, with 24 crossing the median line, a boundary that, while not a formal border, has served for decades as an informal buffer preventing direct confrontation. Seven naval vessels and a warship bristling with cruise missiles closed to within 24 nautical miles of Taiwanese soil.

Taiwan's response, scrambling combat air patrol aircraft, deploying naval vessels, and activating coastal missile systems, represents the kind of full-spectrum defensive mobilization that no country can sustain indefinitely. Each scramble costs fuel, flight hours, and readiness. Each deployment wears down equipment and personnel. China, with its vastly larger military, can afford to run these patrols repeatedly. Taiwan cannot match that pace forever.

Joseph Wu's characterization of the patrols as "unprovoked" carries weight. Taiwan did not conduct exercises, announce new weapons acquisitions, or take any diplomatic step that would traditionally trigger a Chinese military response. The patrols came after the Beijing summit, an event that was supposed to reduce friction, not amplify it.

Taiwan's Military News Agency did not respond to a request for comment.

Open questions the administration must answer

Several gaps remain in the official account. The specific date of Cao's Senate subcommittee testimony was not disclosed. The scope and nature of Operation Epic Fury, the operation consuming munitions that were earmarked for Taiwan, remain undefined. China has offered no public rationale for the "joint combat readiness patrol," leaving observers to interpret the military's actions against the backdrop of Xi's private assurances.

The administration's position rests on a verbal promise from Xi Jinping relayed through an unnamed official. Meanwhile, the observable facts, cruise-missile-armed warships 24 miles from Taiwan, fighter jets crossing the median line from four directions, a carrier group drilling with live ordnance in the western Pacific, and more than 100 ships strung along the First Island Chain, point in a different direction.

Promises from Beijing are worth exactly as much as the military restraint that follows them. Right now, the PLA is not acting like an army that got the memo. And Taiwan, whose arms delivery just got paused without so much as a phone call, is left to scramble jets and hope the math holds.