Taiwan defense officials say China has dispatched its largest naval fleet to the region’s waters in nearly three decades.
They said the threat to Taiwan was more obvious than in previous Chinese military exercises.
Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Sun Lifang said in Taipei that the Chinese navy’s deployment extends from Japan’s southern islands to the South China Sea, covering the largest area since China held activities in the East China Sea. war games Situations across Taiwan before the 1996 presidential election.
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The Chinese military has yet to comment and has not confirmed any exercises are underway.
Beijing considers democratically governed Taiwan its own territory, although Islanders reject thisThe drills are expected to be held to express anger over President Lai’s Pacific trip, which ends on Friday and includes Hawaii Stopover and the U.S. territory of Guam.
Taiwan’s military said on Monday that China had retained its airspace and deployed navy and coast guard ships, before raising the alarm.
“Compared with the previous four editions, the current scale is the largest,” Sun said. “Whether they declare an exercise or not, they pose a huge threat to us.”
Hsieh Ji-sheng, a senior intelligence official at the Ministry of National Defense, told the same press conference that no live-fire exercises have been conducted so far in China’s seven “reserved” airspaces, two of which are in the Taiwan Strait, but that China’s number of exercises increased significantly in northern Taiwan on the last day. Activity.
Taiwanese security sources said the number of Chinese navy and coast guard vessels in the region remained at around 90, which was “very alarming.” He added that China was targeting other countries in the region, not just Taiwan.
Hsieh said China’s deployment on the first island chain – which surrounds China’s coastal waters from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines to Borneo – is aimed at regional blockade to prevent foreign interference.
“47 military aircraft flew around the island”
The Ministry of National Defense said the Chinese navy is building two “walls” in the Pacific, one at the eastern end of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and the other farther out in the Pacific.
“They sent a very simple message through these two walls: trying to make the Taiwan Strait an inland sea of China,” Hsieh said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said that 47 military aircraft had been spotted operating around the island in the past 24 hours, along with 12 naval vessels and nine “official” vessels, which refers to the Coast Guard. and other ostensibly civilian agency vessels.
Twenty-six of the planes were flying in northern Taiwan near the coast of China’s Zhejiang Province, six in the Taiwan Strait and 15 in southwestern Taiwan, according to a map provided by the Defense Ministry in its daily morning statement.
A senior security source in Taiwan told Reuters that Chinese aircraft simulated attacks on foreign naval vessels and practiced driving off military and civilian aircraft as part of a “blockade exercise”.
Lai and his government reject Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the people of Taiwan can determine their future.
China says the Taiwan issue is “at the core of its core interests” and a red line that the United States should not cross.
Since the beginning of this year, China has held two rounds of large-scale military exercises around Taiwan.
- Reuters Additional editing by Jim Pollard
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