Executive Summary:
- In June 2026, China National Offshore Oil Corporation placed a 16MW floating wind turbine in Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), approximately 50 miles (21.665646, 116.273408) from Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island.
- The PRC now has placed over 30 permanent structures across disputed waters in the Indo-Pacific as part of an irregular warfare strategy to normalize its persistent presence and extraterritorial claims.
- These permanent structures potentially serve as at-sea platforms for electronic warfare, surface and underwater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection platforms enhancing the PLA’s end-to-end “kill web” (C5ISRT) capabilities.
On August 6, Chinese state media broadcast extensive coverage of a new offshore wind turbine, the “Haiyou Anlan” (海油安澜号), that had entered operation (YouTube/CCTV; Xinhua; Global Times; Lianhe Zaobao, August 6). The coverage framed the turbine, which belongs to the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC; 中国海洋石油总公司), as another win in Beijing’s push for technological and clean energy breakthroughs. One interview describes it as an important achievement under the 15th Five-Year Plan for key offshore wind turbine construction projects, and part of the Chinese state’s vision of itself as a “maritime power” (海洋强国) and an “energy power” (能源强国) (Fengkou, August 6).
The coverage uniformly neglected to mention one crucial detail: the Haiyou Anlan wind turbine has been installed in Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This is not the first time the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has built permanent structures in Taiwan’s waters. In September 2025, the geospatial intelligence firm ingeniSPACE identified a number of PRC oil and gas structures in Taiwan’s EEZ (China Brief, September 2, 2025). ingeniSPACE has now identified the addition of the wind turbine with the assistance of All Source Analysis.
Figure 1: Chinese Permanent Structures Within Taiwan’s EEZ
(Source: Vantor, July 29, 2026)
The new structure adds to Beijing’s multi-dimensional campaign to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty. Even following Taiwan’s demand for the cessation of construction and exploitative activities following the public revelation in September 2025 of Chinese structures in Taiwanese waters, the PRC was still able to continue construction without impediments from Taiwan (The Guardian, September 4, 2025). This state of affairs continues to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty and control over its resources, while also providing Beijing with dual-use infrastructure within range of Taiwanese territory.
Encroachment through Normalized Construction
Satellite imagery from Sentinel-2, taken on July 6, shows the addition of the wind turbine at CNOOC’s Lu Feng 14-4 Oilfield, which encroaches into Taiwan’s EEZ. [1] This wind turbine, the Haiyou Anlan, is a “16 MW floating wind turbine supported by a tension-leg platform” (一座16MW 浮式平台风电机组 … 张力腿式), and is the same as the Lu Feng 14-4 floating offshore wind turbine (LF14-4FOWT) identified in official documents. (PRC Ministry of Ecology and Environment [MEE], September 2024).[2]
Administrative documents reveal that the project received environmental approval on January 9, 2025 (MEE, January 9, 2025). The project consists of three principal elements: the LF14-4FOWT floating wind platform, a subsea power cable connecting it to the existing drilling and production platform at the same site (LF14-4DPP), and modifications to LF14-4DPP to receive and distribute electricity.
Construction began on February 19, 2025 in Qingdao, led by CNOOC’s subsidiary engineering company, Offshore Oil Engineering Co. (COOEC; 海洋石油工程股份有限公司). COOEC describes the project as “the world’s first 16-megawatt tension-leg floating wind platform” (全球首个16兆瓦张力腿浮式风电平台). It notes that it is “positioned northwest of LF14-4DPP” (海域陆丰14-4DPP平台西北方向) and “connected to the seabed by nine tension tendons” (通过9根张力筋腱与海底锚固设备连接). Importantly, COOEC projected that its annual power generation would be approximately 54 million kilowatt-hours (COOEC, March 3, 2025).
The installation of the wind turbine probably occurred between February and April 2026. A notice to mariners (NOTMARS) was issued by the Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration for the same coordinates to which the wind turbine was eventually located (MSA, February 12). [3] Automatic Identification System (AIS) data and satellite imagery corroborate this assessment, as vessels including the LAN JING 7500 (蓝鲸7500) began to frequent the area. [4] LAN JING 7500 spent 16 consecutive days in the eventual location of the wind turbine, on 9–25 April, 2026. The construction plan specifically names this vessel as the installation vessel for the anchor-pile phase. It does not name specific vessels for the other tasks, merely listing vessel requirements for the task. By May 2026, six tugboats assisted in towing the platform’s floating structure from the CNOOC construction site in Qingdao (imarine, May 24). From approval to installation, the project took 17 months to complete.
Figure 2: Satellite Image Showing the Haiyou Anlan Turbine and Support Vessel
(Source: Sentinel 2, July 6)
The turbine’s installation, like other permanent structures in Taiwan’s EEZ, are deployed in close coordination with Beijing’s cognitive, legal, and economic warfare activities (Wang, April 21). [5] Along with maritime law enforcement and research activities, these structures support Beijing’s persistent efforts to create pretexts to institutionalize its jurisdictional claims (China Brief, September 20, 2024, January 16, 2025, June 18, July 10). They also erode Taiwan’s capacity to control the “construction, use, modification, or dismantlement of artificial islands, installations, or structures” in its EEZ (U.S. State Department, November 15, 2005). Taiwan’s inability to prevent CNOOC’s extractive industry only furthers the normalization of the PRC’s administrative control over disputed territory.
Turbine Enables Military Power Projection
The Haiyou Anlan is part of a wider complex of already existing semi-permanent oil and gas structures in the area just north of Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (China Brief, September 2, 2025). Pratas Island is a key military and law enforcement outpost for Taiwan that straddles the South China Sea, the southern entrance into Taiwan Strait, and the western entrance to the Bashi Channel (China Brief, July 10).
Maritime structures such as floating turbines can be used to project power or to provide operational hubs for sensors, systems, and personnel—especially in the context of unmanned systems warfare. This creates options for the PRC and complications for Taiwan. A 16 MW wind turbine can generate enough power to send the low-cost, mass-producible uncrewed systems that the PRC excels at producing over Taiwan during a conflict scenario. [6]
Ukraine’s success in projecting power through attritable systems provides the PRC a roadmap to threaten the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already conducted wargaming exercises simulating conflict in Taiwan that use these systems (Tencent News, September 15, 2024; China Brief, March 28, 2025). The PRC has learned from both Ukraine and Russia the importance of evolving its command and control capabilities under electronic warfare environments to expand a drone swarm’s area of operations. The PLA is rapidly innovating in undersea, surface, and aerial drones, in an effort to create swarms that can overwhelm and out-scale kinetic defensive systems, as well as soft-kill adversarial drone swarms.
The development of electronic warfare and drone warfare makes power generation key to survivability. As a point of comparison, the United States’ Sea Based X-Band Radar-1 (SBX-1) utilizes 22 MWs of power to provide 2,000–2,300 kilometers of operational radar range (Naval Technology, April 9, 2012; Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, 2023). The single Chinese wind turbine installed in Taiwan’s EEZ produces 16 MW of power, equivalent to 72 percent of the SBX-1’s needs. This is likely the prelude to further installations that can close this gap and further enable military capabilities.
Figure 3: Satellite Image of the Haiyou Anlan Turbine
(Source: Vantor, July 29)
As the PRC expands these permanent structures across the Indo-Pacific, it adds an additional layer to its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. The PLA can increasingly monitor and selectively threaten key commercial shipping routes to enhance end-to-end “kill web” C5ISRT capabilities, where the First Island Chain does not have a comparable means to project power or defend. [7]
By operating oil rigs in Taiwan’s claimed EEZ, Beijing has already succeeded with Taiwan where it failed repeatedly with Vietnam. Persistent Vietnamese protest made the difference on those previous occasions (China Brief, September 2, 2025). Failure to protest today risks normalizing sovereignty shaving and encourages further encroachment.
A pattern of obfuscation characterizes Beijing’s approach to installing offshore platforms, allowing for the ambiguity necessary to prevent public reporting on PRC activity in Taiwan’s EEZ. This pattern was evident in the country’s first circular floating production storage and offloading platform (FPSO), the Hai Yang Shi You 122 (海洋石油-122), and with a digitally managed version on a ship, the Hai Yang Shi You 123 (海洋石油-123). These platforms received international industry coverage as first-of-a-kind platforms operating in the Lu Feng oil fields 250 km from Shenzhen. PRC media is now widely featuring the LF14-4FOWT wind turbine in a variety of media reports, describing it as operating off the coast of Hong Kong (CGTN, June 16, 2023). In all cases, however, these structures are present in Taiwan’s EEZ.
If the First Island Chain nations fail to work together to halt PRC’s efforts to place more dual-use permanent structures in their waters, the CCP’s incremental tactics will continue. More structures are already planned in the coming months, with some already under construction. The Philippines, Japan, and Vietnam have been able to impose a reputational cost on the PRC in the past, but Taiwan is unable to do so alone. It is likely that the PRC could be deterred to an extent through collaborative efforts to expose further PRC construction that takes place in restricted waters or by freedom of navigation operations through these areas.
Until deterrent actions are taken, the PRC will continue to extract hundreds of millions of dollars of economic benefits at the expense of these nations while simultaneously normalizing its expansive territorial claims in their waters. This economic benefit comes at the expense of neighboring nations’ security, enabling the militarization of structures to project power through electronic warfare, drone warfare, and expanded A2/AD capabilities.
Notes
[1] The wind turbine is located at 21.665646° N, 116.273408° E.
[2] This is referenced in an environmental assessment report for a project titled “Lufeng Oilfield Group Clean Energy Power Supply Renovation Demonstration Project” (陆丰油⽥群清洁能源电⼒供给改造示范项目). The official planned location for LF14-4FOWT is 21°39’53.898” N, 116°16’22.522” E. The turbine’s observed position is approximately 90 meters from the official coordinate published for LF14-4FOWT.
[3] Maritime Safety Administration Notice 76/26: South China Sea, from February 14 to April 30, all surface and underwater operations are prohibited within a circular area with a radius of 1 nautical mile centered at 21°39.9′N 116°16.4′E” (粤航警76/26，南海，2月14日至4月30日，在以21°39.9′N 116°16.4′E为圆心，半径1海里的圆形海域内进行水上水下作业，禁止驶入).
[4] The LAN JING 7500’s Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number is 414927000.
[5] Wang, Howard. 2026. “China Plans for ‘Total War’: Developing the Capacity to Defeat the ‘Strong Enemy’ of the United States.” Journal of Contemporary China, April, 1–15.
[6] The PRC produces over half a million consumer drones a month. (Global Taiwan Institute, September 15, 2025)
[7] C5ISR stands for Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
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