Why Taiwan’s idyllic eastern outlying islands are increasingly crucial in its defence calculus

Green Island, Taiwan – Taiwanese cafe owner Pan Hsin-chieh had no idea local military troops had recently conducted extensive drills just steps away from her restaurant on Taiwan’s outlying Green Island.

When told, the 29-year-old, who runs a cosy joint serving brunch, said she welcomed it. 

“Sometimes, it feels like the government treats the outlying islands as an afterthought. If there is more attention being given to our area, it’s not a bad thing,” she told The Straits Times.

Green Island, an idyllic volcanic island situated 33km off Taiwan’s south-eastern coast, is popular with tourists for its diving, rare saltwater hot springs and lush, unspoilt terrain.

Holidaymakers flock there for weekend getaways via an hour-long ferry ride from Taitung City in eastern Taiwan.

Along with Orchid Island further south – located some 64km from Taiwan’s southern tip – the Pacific Ocean island is administered as a rural township of Taitung County. 

On July 16, Taiwan’s Second Theatre Command conducted military drills on Green Island and Orchid Island for the first time in 30 years, during which troops rehearsed transporting equipment by land and sea before setting up defensive positions to thwart a surprise attack.

The drills come amid an escalation of Chinese grey-zone pressures in the waters east of Taiwan that analysts say are altering Taipei’s defence calculus. 

Beijing views Taiwan as its territory and has never ruled out the use of force to “reunify” with it; Taipei rejects these claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

Since June, China has staged multiple patrols and what it calls “special maritime traffic law enforcement” operations in the waters east of Taiwan involving government, coast guard and research vessels.

On June 7, the China Coast Guard caused further alarm when, for the first time, it radioed several passing merchant ships for information about their crew and destinations. 

Beijing is “attempting to claim the eastern waters as their domain, like casting a large spider’s web over the area”, Taiwan’s Defence Minister Wellington Koo told lawmakers on June 8.

On July 31, two Chinese coast guard vessels were detected in waters east of Orchid Island, including one that drifted about 80km north-east of the island.

The vessels were part of a task group “strengthening control over the relevant waters to effectively ensure orderly navigation and activities”, the China Coast Guard said in a statement. 

In response, Taiwan’s coast guard said that it sent its vessels to monitor the Chinese ships, and accused Beijing of ​engaging in “fake law enforcement, real expansion of power”. 

Strategic shift

Historically, Green Island and Orchid Island were considered to hold little strategic weight in Taiwan’s defence calculations. 

Military planners long focused on the Taiwan Strait to the west of Taiwan, viewing a potential conflict primarily as a short-range, amphibious invasion across the narrow body of water separating China and Taiwan. 

Meanwhile, eastern Taiwan was viewed as a safe haven, with its central mountain range creating a natural fortress that could shelter the island’s fighter jets, personnel and command structures from western attacks. The eastern outlying islands were deemed too small and remote to be strategically significant.

However, these assumptions are changing. Given the recent surge in Chinese grey-zone activity in the waters east of Taiwan, experts say that Green Island and Orchid Island could be a critical friction point in a conflict.

China’s growing maritime operations in those waters also threaten to compromise vital wartime logistics corridors for Taiwan, analysts added. 

Chieh Chung, a military analyst at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, pointed out that China deployed a Type 075 landing helicopter dock in waters south-east of Taiwan in December 2025 when conducting helicopter launch-and-recovery drills. The 40,000-tonne flat top acts as a light aircraft carrier capable of deploying more than 30 helicopters and hundreds of marines. 

If Green Island or Orchid Island were captured, China could use it as “forward operating bases for its helicopter units to reinforce combat troops on Taiwan’s main island”, said Chieh. 

“That would be much more convenient and efficient than flying helicopters across the... Strait from (China’s) Fujian province.”

Zack Liao, a research associate at London-based think-tank China Strategic Risks Institute, noted that Taiwan’s eastern waters are central to its wartime survivability.

Orchid Island, in particular, sits at the northern edge of the Bashi Channel, a global maritime choke point connecting the South China Sea to the Western Pacific.

“In a crisis, Taiwan’s eastern ports and sea lines of communication would be vital for humanitarian assistance, evacuation, military logistics and external support,” he told ST. 

“If China can impose pressure east of Taiwan, it can begin to threaten the island’s external lifelines and move Taiwan towards strategic isolation,” he said. 

For Pan, the cafe owner, who only wants to live a “slow life”, talk of these recent military developments feels distant from her daily life.

Still, she said she does not take her civil liberties for granted, noting that the White Terror Memorial Park is just around the corner from her restaurant. The park commemorates the political prisoners and victims of state persecution who were detained during Taiwan’s authoritarian martial law era from 1949 to 1987 and serves as a profound historical reminder of Taiwan’s road to democracy. 

For decades, political dissidents and activists were imprisoned on Green Island, where many were forced to perform hard labour and undergo ideological re-education. 

“The older generation used to always tell us that the roads on Green Island were built by political prisoners,” said Pan. 

“I wouldn’t want to see anything like that happen again in my lifetime, so of course I value my freedom living in Taiwan,” she added.

Wu Shu-feng, 54, a Green Island resident who runs a business renting out scooters to tourists, shrugged off any concerns about a potential Chinese invasion. She said Taiwan has lived under the threat of a potential attack for “too long”, and she has become “quite numb” to it.

“If you cry wolf too often, it’s difficult for me to believe it,” said the mother of one.

“Of course, nobody wants war. I just want to live a quiet life here on the island.”