“We urge China to exercise self-restraint and stop undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond,” Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs said.

China regards democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to bring the island under its control, possibly by force, and US intelligence believes that Xi Jinping has ordered the PLA to be ready to take the island by 2027. 

In the meantime, Taipei has had to react to a campaign of so-called “grey zone” activities including frequent cyber-attacks, regular incursions by military jets in its airspace, and harassment by Chinese vessels in its waters.

Taiwan’s military is vastly smaller than China’s, but it is protected by formidable mountainous terrain — and the treacherous 110-mile Taiwan Strait.

The Chinese navy already has the world’s biggest surface fleet, and it has also built dozens of dual-use vessels capable of acting during peacetime and in war.

A decade ago, Beijing issued technical guidelines for shipbuilders that would enable many of its civilian vessels to be suitable for military uses and is believed to have integrated its ferries, tankers and container ships within its military command structure, according to a report from the US Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute.

Ferries ‘join the army’

Chinese state media has touted these efforts for years, regularly hailing the participation of ferries in cross-sea landing drills, with broadcaster CCTV praising the 135-metre Bang Chui Dao after it “joined the army” for military exercises in 2019, or the 164-metre Bohai Pearl in 2021, which Global Times said would make a good addition for “transporting troops on a large scale in amphibious landing missions,” citing an anonymous Chinese military expert.

Another Chinese shipping news service gushed over the Chang Da Long, a civilian ferry which is large enough to carry enough heavy tanks and other vehicles to fill two mechanised infantry battalions, writing that it is “dressed in a civilian shell, but it has a military heart!”.

Tom Shugart, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security think tank, estimated in 2022 that China’s civilian vessels could dramatically increase the tonnage of military material that can be moved by its existing military amphibious assault craft, giving it capacity to transport about 300,000 troops and their vehicles across the Taiwan strait in about 10 days.