China’s maritime movements around Taiwan are largest in decades, Taipei says

China has fielded its largest regional maritime deployment in decades, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, as it monitors what it says is a surge of Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific.

Taiwan has been on high alert since Monday as it braced for expected military drills after President Lai Ching-te sparked Beijing’s ire by making unofficial stops in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam earlier this month.

Taiwan on Monday said multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels were moving in regional waters and around the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has not announced military drills or acknowledged the large-scale deployment cited by Taipei.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its own territory, despite never having controlled it, and has not ruled out taking the island by force. It views unofficial interactions between Washington and Taipei as a violation of its sovereignty. Taiwan’s leadership rejects China’s territorial claims over it.

An “astonishing” number of Chinese vessels have been deployed at a scale that “could block external forces,” Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-Sheng, deputy chief of the General Staff for Intelligence, said at a Taiwan Defense Ministry briefing Tuesday.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval deployment was not only targeting Taiwan, Hsieh said, adding that the geographic spread stretched into waters past the first island chain. The strategically significant chain of islands encompasses Japan, Taiwan, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, and as long been a key plank in the US maintaining its position as the dominant power in the Pacific.

“The PLA’s recent activities not only exerted military pressure on Taiwan. Its naval forces, specifically, have significantly raised its posture around Taiwan and the Western Pacific,” Hsieh said.

China’s ability to block outside forces from entering the first island chain could pose a survival threat to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, potentially cutting off naval access by outside forces seeking to aid the island.

The maritime deployment was the largest since China began holding large-scale war games around Taiwan in the mid-1990s, according to the ministry.

Taiwan authorities also reported a significant increase in PLA aircraft operating around the island, detecting 47 such jets in the 24 hours before 6 a.m. Tuesday.

In a statement Monday, Taiwan authorities said the PLA had designated seven zones of reserved airspace to the east of its coastal Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.

No live-fire exercises had yet taken place in the zones which lie to the north and northwest of Taiwan respectively, the ministry said in its Tuesday briefing.

Visit to US

The Chinese military movement comes days after Lai made unofficial stops in Hawaii and Guam during a weeklong South Pacific tour, which wrapped Friday.

The visit was Lai’s first to the United States since becoming president in May. The leader, who has long faced Beijing’s wrath for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty, used his travel to tout solidarity with likeminded democracies.

Chinese authorities voiced firm opposition to Lai’s trip, referring to him as a “separatist.” His travel came after the US approved new arms sales to Taiwan, which prompted China to vow “strong countermeasures.”

Military drills have increasingly become one of Beijing’s go-to tools to voice dissatisfaction and visits by US or Taiwanese officials to each other’s soil have in the past sparked significant war games from China.

In May, days after Lai’s inauguration, China launched two days of large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan in what it called “punishment” for so-called “separatist acts.” It called those drills “Joint Sword-2024A.”

China then conducted “Joint-Sword-2024B” drills in October, after Lai said during a National Day address that the island was “not subordinate” to China.

When asked about the military movements during a regular briefing Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning declined to comment directly but said, “the Taiwan issue is China’s internal affair, and China will firmly defend its national sovereignty.”

This story has been updated with additional information.