Defense officials in Taiwan say China has deployed nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels in waters stretching from islands in the south of Japan to the South China Sea. The deployment is the largest to regional waters in almost three decades, Taiwanese officials say, and part of what appears to be a military exercise.
China has not yet commented on the movements or confirmed it is conducting exercises.
Speaking at a regular press briefing on Tuesday, Taiwanese defense officials said Beijing’s operation is not only targeting Taipei but aimed at demonstrating its ability to prevent regional countries, including Japan and the Philippines, from coming to the island’s defense.
“The current scale is the largest compared to the previous four [Chinese war games],” Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang told journalists at the press conference. China claims democratically ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has not ruled out the possibility of using force to achieve its goal of reunification. There is little to no support for unification with authoritarian China in Taiwan.
Sun said the exercises were the largest since war games were held around the island in response to its first presidential elections in 1996.
In recent days, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it has detected 21 Chinese vessels and 47 Chinese military aircraft operating in the immediate vicinity of the island.
Hsieh Jih-sheng, a senior intelligence officer at Taiwan’s defense ministry, told journalists at the same press conference that China’s broader maritime deployment is aimed at blocking forces from Japan and the Philippines from coming to Taiwan’s aid in a potential Chinese military attack against the island.
In addition to honing its capabilities to deny access to a broad swath around the island, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said China is also forming two “walls” in the western Pacific, deploying large numbers of vessels to the eastern end of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone and an area further out in the Pacific.
Air defense identification zones are unilaterally established by a country’s air defense forces and are not underpinned by international treaty or law.
“With these two walls, they are sending a clear message: The Taiwan Strait is their internal waters, and cross-strait issues should be handled by the People's Liberation Army [PLA] and the People's Republic of China,” Taiwanese defense official Hsieh told journalists.
Taiwan has been preparing for a potential Chinese military exercise around the island since President Lai Ching-te set off on his first overseas trip to the Pacific region, which included stopovers in the U.S. territory of Guam and state of Hawaii, on November 30.
Throughout the trip, Taipei repeatedly warned about China potentially launching a new round of military drills near the island and urged Beijing not to “send the wrong signals.”
When asked about the movements of Chinese vessels on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning did not provide additional details.
“The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair. China will firmly defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said during the regular press conference.
One Chinese analyst, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue, told VOA that it is hard to say why Beijing hasn’t publicly announced any maritime operations around Taiwan.
J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute, said Beijing may want to “keep the Taiwanese side guessing” by not announcing its planned military operations.
“Telegraphing one’s intentions only goes so far. Beijing may want to be more flexible and less predictable than it has been in the past,” he told VOA in written response.
Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international studies at Tokyo’s International Christian University, said maintaining ambiguity makes it difficult for Taiwan and regional countries to respond to Chinese military operations in the region.
“Ambiguity creates challenges for Taiwan and neighboring stakeholders, such as Japan, the United States and the Philippines, to know what the Chinese are doing and what’s the best way to respond,” he told VOA in a phone interview.
Despite the lack of clarity from Beijing, Cole in Taipei said the Taiwanese government’s efforts to “proactively” disclose Chinese military activities in the region help to bring more international attention to the threats and pressure that democratically ruled Taiwan faces from China.
“Such public diplomacy makes the threat more palpable and turns an abstract concept into something that is real and that people can relate to,” he told VOA.
On Monday, Taiwan launched a series of war-preparedness drills at strategic locations across the island and publicized information about the unannounced Chinese military operations. Those moves, Taiwanese experts say, have helped Taipei create an intelligence deterrence against Beijing.
“By swiftly disclosing Chinese military operations in the region and initiating its own countermeasures, Taiwan is trying to deter China from further escalating its military activities around the island,” Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told VOA by phone.
While Taiwan has adopted some countermeasures, some analysts say Beijing is also “routinizing” its coercion against Taipei by maintaining a constant military presence across the region.
“The People’s Liberation [Army] and Chinese coast guard are so big that they can maintain a constant presence near Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan at the same time,” said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and a former Pentagon official.
“Military operators may have a difficult time discerning when an attack is actually coming when every day looks like an attack,” he told VOA by phone.
Nagy in Japan said as the United States prepares for a change in administrations over the next few weeks, he expects China to ramp up pressure against Taiwan.
