China is deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games, the Ministry of National Defense said today.
Speaking in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections.
China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any exercises.
Photo provided by the Ministry of National Defense
"The current scale is the largest compared to the previous four [exercises around Taiwan]," Sun said. "Regardless of whether they have announced drills, they are posing a great threat to us."
Senior ministry intelligence officer Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) told the same news conference there have so far been no live-fire drills in China's seven "reserved" airspace zones, two of which are in the Taiwan Strait, but there had been a significant increase in Chinese activity to the north of Taiwan over the past day.
The number of China navy and coast guard ships in the region, which a Taiwan security source told Reuters remained at around 90, was "very alarming," and China was taking aim at other countries in the region and not only Taiwan, he added.
China's deployment in the First Island Chain — which runs from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China's coastal seas — is aimed at area denial to prevent foreign forces from interfering, Hsieh said.
The ministry said China's navy is building two "walls" in the Pacific, one at the eastern end of Taiwan's air defense identification zone and the other further out in the Pacific.
"They are sending a very simple message with these two walls: trying to make the Taiwan Strait an internal sea" of China, Hsieh said.
Earlier today, the ministry said it detected 47 military aircraft operating around the nation over the past 24 hours, as well as 12 navy vessels and nine "official" ships, which refers to vessels from ostensibly civilian agencies such as the coast guard.
Of the aircraft, 26 flew in an area to the north of Taiwan off the coast of China's Zhejiang Province, six in the Taiwan Strait and a further 15 to the nation's southwest, according to a map the ministry provided in its daily morning statement on Chinese activities.
A senior Taiwan security source told Reuters that the Chinese aircraft simulated attacks on foreign naval ships and practiced driving away military and civilian aircraft as part of a "blockade exercise."
China has held two rounds of major war games around Taiwan so far this year.
If China holds another military exercise, it would be viewed as coercive behavior which would be counterproductive in terms of diplomacy, Heino Klinck, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, told CNA today.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is extending its scale and coverage of military drills every time, which is a way of numbing Taiwan and its allies, he said.
“Normalizing” its military exercises would arouse less attention and could affect Taiwan and its allies’ judgement and shorten their reaction time if an actual invasion happens, he said.
The US is closely monitoring the PLA’s activities around Taiwan, a spokesperson of the US Department of State said today.
The department called for restraint and said China should avoid taking any actions that could destroy regional peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
President William Lai’s (賴清德) transit in US territory during his tour of Pacific allies last week should not be an excuse for exerting military pressure on Taiwan, it said.
China is angry because of Lai’s stopovers in Hawaii and Guam during his Pacific tour, former US Navy rear admiral Mark Montgomery said.
Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation of the Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the PLA was expected to hold military exercises this winter.
It is worrying that the PLA’s drills have become larger and more complicated and directly threaten Taiwan’s security, he said.
These drills are intended to convey strategic messages to the Taiwanese and create opportunities for training the PLA, he said while calling on the US and Taiwan to continue to promote their bilateral relationship in suitable ways.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS