The Ministry of National Defense yesterday confirmed that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning passed through the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning — without crossing its median line — en route to the South China Sea, reiterating that the ministry had monitored the entire passage.
The voyage has drawn attention from Taiwan’s military and the international community amid rising tension over China’s demarcation of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea on Saturday.
Beijing’s East China Sea ADIZ overlaps with those of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea in a region marked by territorial disputes over the Diaoyutai Islands, claimed by Taiwan, China and Japan, and Ieodo, a South Korean-controlled submerged rock, which China also claims.
Photo: CNA
The carrier entered Taiwan’s ADIZ at about 10:30am on Wednesday and maintained a course approximately 14 nautical miles (26km) west of the median line of the Taiwan Strait before leaving Taiwan’s ADIZ at about 4am yesterday morning, ministry spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said.
“Taiwan’s surveillance and reconnaissance system, as well as several naval vessels and air force fighter jets, monitored the fleet’s entire passage through the Strait,” Lo said.
China’s Xinhua news agency reported early yesterday morning that the Liaoning, escorted by two guided missile destroyers, the Shenyang and Shijiazhuang, and two guided missile frigates, the Yantai and Weifang, had passed through the Strait on its way to a training mission in the South China Sea.
The voyage through the Strait took about 10 hours, the agency reported, adding that the Liaoning, China’s first and only aircraft carrier, left its home port of Qingdao in Shandong Province on Tuesday for a scientific and training mission.
The Liaoning, bought from Ukraine and refurbished in China, was commissioned last year and has been sent to the South China Sea for the first time.
Responding to the situation, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to lodge a protest with Beijing.
“Otherwise, the Taiwan Strait will become a Chinese inland sea in the future,” Tsai said, adding that Taiwan should side with its democratic allies over the situation.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said China’s decision to send the carrier through the Taiwan Strait instead of cruising along Taiwan’s east coast hinted at Beijing’s backpedaling from its previously hawkish position on the ADIZ issue.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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