Multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels are moving in waters around the Taiwan Strait and the Western Pacific, Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry said Monday, as the island braces for potential military drills by Beijing. <\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s armed forces had identified Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) vessels from the Eastern, Northern, and Southern Theater Command, as well as Coast Guard vessels entering the areas, the ministry said in statement. <\/p>\n
The military movement comes days after Taiwan President Lai Ching-te sparked Beijing\u2019s ire by making unofficial stops in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam during a weeklong South Pacific tour, which wrapped Friday. <\/p>\n
Chinese authorities voiced firm opposition to Lai\u2019s trip, referring to him as a \u201cseparatist.\u201d Lai\u2019s trip came after the US approved new arms sales to Taiwan, which prompted China to vow \u201cstrong countermeasures.\u201d <\/p>\n
China\u2019s ruling Communist Party claims the self-ruling democracy as its own territory, despite never having controlled it and views unofficial interactions between the US and Taiwan as a violation of its sovereignty. <\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s leadership rejects <\/strong>China\u2019s territorial claims over it, while Beijing has vowed to \u201creunify\u201d with the island and has not ruled out taking it by force. <\/p>\n Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry on Monday also said it had started combat readiness exercises \u201cto counter PLA activities\u201d and remained on high alert monitoring the PLA movements. <\/p>\n \u201cAny unilateral provocations could undermine Indo-Pacific peace and stability. We will address all gray zone incursions and ensure our national security,\u201d the ministry said in a post on the social media platform X. <\/p>\n Beijing has in the past used military drills to intimidate Taiwan in response to actions it views as violating its claims over the island \u2013 part of a wider trend of its increased military pressure that\u2019s played a role in tightening the unofficial partnership between Washington and Beijing. <\/p>\n In May, days after Lai\u2019s inauguration, China launched two days of large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan in what it called \u201cpunishment\u201d for so-called \u201cseparatist acts.\u201d It called those drills \u201cJoint Sword-2024A.\u201d <\/p>\n China then conducted \u201cJoint-Sword-2024B\u201d drills in October, after Lai said during a National Day address that the island was \u201cnot subordinate\u201d to China. <\/p>\n The latest military movement by China appears to differ from those two drills, the Taiwan official noted. <\/p>\n Instead of encircling Taiwan, Chinese naval ships appear aiming to assert control within the first island chain \u2013 a strategic chain of islands encompassing Japan, Taiwan, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, the official added. <\/p>\n Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry also said on Monday that the PLA had designated seven zones of reserved airspace <\/em>to the east of its coastal Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, which lie to the north and northwest of Taiwan respectively. <\/p>\n These zones are temporarily reserved for a particular user during a set period, though other aircrafts can still pass through with permission from the controllers of the airspace, according to international aviation rules. <\/p>\n When asked about the vessels and airspace restrictions cited by Taiwan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Monday: \u201cTaiwan is an integral part of China\u2019s territory. The Taiwan issue is China\u2019s internal affair. China will firmly safeguard its national sovereignty and territory.\u201d <\/p>\n Lai made his stopovers in Hawaii and Guam during a tour to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Palau \u2013 who are among a handful of Taiwan\u2019s remaining diplomatic allies. Such unofficial stopovers in the US are customary for Taiwan leaders. <\/p>\n The visit was Lai\u2019s first to the United States since becoming president in May. The leader, who has long faced Beijing\u2019s wrath for championing Taiwan\u2019s sovereignty, used his travel to tout solidarity with likeminded democracies. <\/p>\n During his stop in Guam, Lai called on likeminded countries to \u201cnever bow down to totalitarianism.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI hope that all of our compatriots, no matter where you are, will make a joint commitment to continue to deepen our democracy and protect it,\u201d Lai said in an address to members of the overseas Taiwan community, as well as Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero on Thursday. <\/p>\n Lai also had a phone call with US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson during his stopover on the US territory, which houses some of the most strategically important American bases in the Pacific. <\/p>\n Beijing lashed out at Lai\u2019s travel throughout last week and vowed to \u201ctake resolute and strong measures to defend our nation\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels are moving in waters around the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Larger naval deployment<\/h2>\n
\u2018Never bow down to authoritarianism\u2019<\/h2>\n