Taiwan monitors surge in warplanes as Chinese aircraft carrier conducts Pacific drills

TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said on July 11 it was closely watching Chinese military movements after a surge in warplanes joining drills with China’s Shandong aircraft carrier in the Pacific.

The Chinese military exercises coincide with a Nato summit in Washington, where a draft communique says China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, and Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security.

The Shandong

passed close to the Philippines

on its way to the Pacific exercises, Taiwan’s Defence Minister said on July 10.

In its daily update on Chinese military activity over the past 24 hours, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it detected 66 Chinese military aircraft operating around the island.

Of those, 39 passed to the south and south-east of Taiwan, the ministry said, having previously said it detected 36 aircraft heading to the Western Pacific to carry out drills with the Shandong.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry released two pictures – a grainy black-and-white one of a Chinese J-16 fighter and a colour one of a nuclear-capable H-6 bomber – which it said were taken recently, but did not say exactly where or when.

“The military has a detailed grasp of the activities in the seas and waters around the Taiwan Strait, including of the Chinese communist aircraft and ships,” Taiwan’s Defence Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang said in a statement, adding that included those aircraft and ships carrying out drills with the Shandong.

Taiwan’s forces tracked the two Chinese warplanes photographed, he said.

Speaking to military officers in Taipei, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said he will continue to strengthen the island’s defences.

“The Chinese communists’ threat to regional stability continues to rise, and its grey zone intrusions into the Taiwan Strait and surrounding areas are also increasing day by day, which are a common challenge to global democracy,” he said, according to a statement from his office.

Ahead of the summit in the US, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry had told Reuters it “welcomes Nato’s continuous increase in attention to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region in recent years, and its active strengthening of exchanges and interactions with countries in the Indo-Pacific region”.

Mr Lin Jian, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated on July 11 that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory”.

“The determination and resolve of the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity are unwavering,” he said during a regular press briefing.

Taiwan is not the only hot spot security issue involving China – and Russia – in the region.

Japan’s Self-Defence Forces, in a statement, said it tracked two Russian frigates on July 10 passing between two of its islands at the western end of its Okinawa chain, close to Taiwan heading south-west towards the Pacific Ocean.

China and the Philippines are

locked in a confrontation

in the disputed South China Sea, and their encounters have grown more tense as Beijing presses its claims to shoals in waters that Manila says are well within its exclusive economic zone.

US allies Australia and Japan have been stepping up their military activities too.

The Philippine Air Force arrived in northern Australia on July 10 on its first overseas deployment in six decades for combat practice alongside US and Australian fighter jets.

A Japanese navy destroyer also made a rare entry into China’s territorial waters near Taiwan earlier in July without notifying China and sparking “serious concerns” from Beijing, Japanese media outlets reported late on July 10. REUTERS