Taiwan / ROC
Republic of China Armed Forces
Taiwan's armed forces — army, navy, air force and mobilisation organisation — under civilian control through the Ministry of National Defense and an elected president.
Coverage · Taiwan Strait
Context, not targeting. This atlas describes structure and history. It deliberately excludes current locations, live strength, unit movements and anything operationally sensitive — the content model has no fields for them. Branch depth reflects what can be established from public sources, not the size, capability or importance of a force: a thin branch means a state publishes little, and record counts are never a measure of strength.
Force StructureThe full command tree for each side — who sits under whom, with the subordination of every record stated and graded.FormationsEvery formation as a searchable list, when you know the unit you are looking for rather than where it sits.
Current state
What this atlas holds
Records assessed as of 2026-10
How the forces on each side are organised — formations, lineage and subordination, never locations or strength.
- Published records57As of 2026-10Formations index
- Reviewed profiles57As of 2026-10Formations indexFull or partial profiles that have passed source review.
- Formations15As of 2026-10Formations indexRecords typed as a formation or a special unit; services, commands and groupings are counted above.
- Documented equipment edges39As of 2026-10Formations indexTyped equipment associations graded documented — never quantities.
- Newest status date2026-10As of 2026-10Formations indexThe most recent status-as-of date any record in this module carries.
The trees The 9 trees this module publishes across 4 sides, as selectable objects. Each plate opens the structure beneath that record; the count on a record is a count of published records, never a measure of strength.Interrogate Taiwan Strait in Explore
Taiwan / ROC
Taiwan Coast Guard Administration
Taiwan's civilian maritime law-enforcement service — the agency that actually meets Chinese coast guard vessels around the outlying islands.
PRC
People's Liberation Army
The armed forces of the Chinese party-state — organised since the 2015–16 reforms into services that build and equip forces and theatre commands that would employ them.
PRC
China Coast Guard
China's maritime law-enforcement service — the instrument of choice for asserting jurisdiction below the threshold that would justify a military response.
PRC
PRC maritime militia structures
State-linked civilian maritime structures reported to act in coordination with Chinese state vessels — documented mainly in the South China Sea, and considerably less clear around Taiwan.
United States
US Indo-Pacific Command
The US combatant command responsible for the Indo-Pacific — the institutional expression of the American presence whose credibility is the system's most discussed variable.
Regional states
Japan Self-Defense Forces
Japan's armed forces — constitutionally constrained, substantially modernising, and positioned across the northern approaches to Taiwan.
Regional states
Armed Forces of the Philippines
The Philippine military — focused on its own maritime disputes with China, and relevant here through the geography of the Luzon Strait and an evacuation mission Manila has named itself.
Regional states
Australian Defence Force
Australia's armed forces — a US ally investing in long-range and undersea capability on decade-plus timelines, with no stated Taiwan commitment.
How to read this atlasRecord states, subordination grades and lineage — and the dated structural changes this module's records and corrections carry
How to read this atlas
Structure. Each side is a set of trees: state military, interior forces, and browsing groups. A record marked “Grouping · not a command” exists only so related organisations can be found together — its members do not share a command, and each states its real parent institution.
Record states. A full profile has passed source review. A stub is an honest structural placeholder — name, place in the tree, broad role, and a dated status — awaiting research. Records that cannot yet meet even that threshold are held internally and do not appear on the site at all.
Subordination grades. Parent links are graded:confirmed, reported, disputed,historical, or unknown. Where a current parent cannot be verified — as with brigades amid Ukraine's rolling corps reform — the record says unknown rather than inventing precision.
Lineage, not amnesia. Reorganised, merged or disbanded organisations keep their records, marked with dated predecessor and successor links — Wagner's absorption after 2023 and the Donetsk and Luhansk corps are carried this way, never as if unchanged.
Every record carries a status as of date for its claims and a separate reviewed date for editorial checks — a review never silently refreshes a status date.
Recent structural changes
Dated changes the records in this module state about themselves, and the corrections the public log records against this atlas — newest first.
The widest single-day geography on the module's record: coast guard, research and fishing vessels in four areas around Taiwan on 18 October, a Pratas entry with AIS off on 20 October, and five cutters shadowing eight Japan Coast Guard ships along the strait's median line on 22 October. Presence and language, with no boarding, inspection or closure area, and no vessel bound for a main port approached.
Lusheng No. 2, the annual brigade-level tactical validation exercise, run in a ten-day, nine-night format for the first time, up from seven days, with the 269th and 564th brigades exercising and county reserve commands sending liaison officers; terminated at 10:00 on 22 October, after nine of its ten days, ahead of a typhoon land warning, the Army saying its main training subjects were complete. A decision about how the force is tested; no findings were published.
The first two new-build F-16 Block 70 aircraft of the 66 ordered in 2019 landed at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung; the service announced acceptance and conversion training to follow, with later deliveries set against milestones agreed with the US programme office. Delivery, not fielding: integration with the 7th Tactical Fighter Wing comes next and no schedule for the remaining aircraft has been published.
The retired cutter Kinmen (CG-123), disarmed and stripped of coast guard markings, was handed to a Philippine foundation at a ceremony on 21 September and commissioned into the Philippine Coast Guard as BRP Sarangani on 3 October — the first transfer of a Taiwanese maritime-law-enforcement hull to a state with which Taipei has had no diplomatic relations since 1975, with an eight-day goodwill visit to the Philippines planned for October 2027.
HIMARS launchers and loitering munitions fired at Jiupeng in the tri-service joint precision missile firing of 16 to 18 September 2026, inside a cross-service targeting procedure the ministry describes, with firing units dispersing and relocating between shots — foreign-delivered fires exercised together inside one described procedure; integration stated, not assessed.
Standing patrols east of Taiwan: a task group led by the cutter Daishan began them in June 2026, described by the service as law enforcement including vessel inspection, fishery protection and rescue, and a second group led by the Xiushan was rotated in on 4 July. The rotation of a named formation is what distinguishes a standing patrol from a recurring one; the last announcement of the patrol found is dated 3 September and no third group has been reported.
Full history on the corrections log.
Evidence and grading
- Subordination
- Every parent link is graded by the record itself: confirmed, reported, disputed, historical or unknown. Where a current parent cannot be verified the record says unknown rather than inventing precision.
- Record state
- A full profile has passed source review; a partial profile is under review; a stub is a structural placeholder — name, place in the tree, broad role and a dated status — awaiting research. Records below that threshold are not published at all.
- Confidence
- How well established Vigil considers this assessment to be. It is not a measure of how severe the situation is.