Taiwan has raised its alert level, stating that China had reserved airspace and deployed naval and coast guard vessels in what a security source called the first military drills across a broad swathe of the region’s waters.
A senior Taiwan security official said China had nearly 90 navy and coast guard ships near Taiwan, the southern Japanese islands and the East and South China Seas, of which around two-thirds were naval.
Beijing’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its territory, had been expected to launch another round of exercises in response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s trip to the Pacific, which included stopovers in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam, security sources had said.
Beijing set up seven “temporary reserved areas” of airspace until Wednesday to the east of its eastern Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, Taiwan’s defence ministry said in a statement.
Such zones are allocated for a particular user during a set period, though other flights can pass through with permission, under international rules.
A Notice to Air Mission issued by China listed coordinates for the seven areas, two of which face Taiwan off China’s Fujian province but are closer to the Chinese coast.
The rest are concentrated along the Zhejiang coastline and off Shanghai, into the East China Sea.
However, China did not immediately announce any specific weapons test or military zones. In August 2022, it fired missiles into waters around Taiwan during war games to protest a visit to Taipei by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Taiwan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China’s deployment was larger than the previous two major drills around Taiwan this year.
“For the first time they are targeting the entire island chain,” the source said, referring to an area that runs from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and onto Borneo, enclosing the seas around China’s coast.
Taiwan’s military said it had also activated “combat readiness exercises” at strategic locations.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
