TAIPEI – Taiwan demanded Wednesday that China end its ongoing military activity in nearby waters, which it said is unilaterally undermining peace and stability and disrupting international shipping and trade.
Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website that it was responding in part to the activities of a “large number” of Chinese ships in the first-island chain, the Pacific archipelago off the Asian continental mainland that includes Japan, Taiwan and part of the Philippines.
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“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs solemnly demands that the Beijing authorities immediately stop military intimidation and all irrational activities that endanger regional peace and stability,” the statement said.
Taiwan’s military has detected Chinese ships since Monday, both off Taiwan and farther out along the first-island chain, Defense Ministry officials said this week. They described the formations as two walls designed to demonstrate that the waters belong to China. Taiwanese media, citing an unnamed national security official, have said that 90 ships — 60 from the navy and 30 from the coast guard — are involved overall.
An analyst said the participation of the coast guard, which also took part in drills in May and October, is new this year and part of a blockade scenario in which the coast guard would block Taiwan’s ports while the navy would form an outer barrier out at sea.
“They were practicing to seal off Taiwan,” Kuo Yujen, an Asia-Pacific security expert at the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Taiwan's military had been expecting drills following stops by its president, Lai Ching-te, in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam during an overseas trip last week. China claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory and opposes any official contact with America and other foreign governments.
China restricted airspace off its southeast coast from Monday to Wednesday, an indication that it was planning to hold drills over those three days, but the country’s People’s Liberation Army has not confirmed whether it is doing so.
The low-key approach may be intended as a warning to both Lai and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Kuo said.
Lai, who took office in May, angered China by visiting Hawaii and Guam, but unlike other new leaders, he has so far refrained from going to the U.S. mainland, Kuo said. The analyst added that if China held a high-profile exercise around Taiwan, it wouldn't have a card to play if Lai visits the continental U.S. next year.
“China must reserve strategic maneuvering room for itself,” he said.
Kuo also believes the military activity is “a very important strategic communication” to Trump. “They intentionally let Trump know that this is the red line,” he said. "If the new U.S. administration allows President Lai to transit (the mainland U.S.), then China will react even more strongly. By then, it would be a large-scale military drill.”
The Chinese military held major exercises around Taiwan following both Lai’s inauguration in May and his national day speech in October. It also held a major drill after Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in 2022.
A Chinese spokesperson didn't comment directly on any ongoing exercises but said in a statement posted online Wednesday that the government would not let provocations by Taiwan in collusion with external forces go unchecked.
"We will take necessary measures to resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and safeguard the fundamental interests of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” said Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the government's Taiwan Affairs Office.
The Taiwan Strait is a 160-kilometer (100-mile) wide body of water between China and the island of Taiwan.
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Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.