Military detects nothing unusual across the Strait

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday that various military exercises being held in China are routine and that there has been no sign of unusual maneuvers by China's military.

"Various branches of the Chinese military are conducting regular training exercises in different parts of China. They include the navy, air force, army and second artillery corps," MND spokesman Major-General Huang Sui-sheng (黃穗生) said.

"We have not found any unusual military activities in China that might pose a threat to Taiwan. We have the situation under control," Huang said.

Huang made the remarks yesterday at a press conference in response to questions from the media over whether the MND had discovered any sign of China's military launching large-scale exercises in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan.

"The exercises now being held along China's southeastern coast should be routine. Such exercises have been held annually in recent years. They have taken place between May and October each year," Huang said.

"The time and location of these exercises was chosen mainly because the weather is usually good and the sea is calm between May and October along the southeastern coast," he said.

The military has not raised its alert level because of the exercises underway in China, but will keep a close eye on them, Huang said.

"The armed forces maintain routine operations without being affected by China's exercises. If anything unusual should happen, the armed forces will respond according to combat plans," the MND spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Major-General Peng Chin-ming (彭進明), chief of the air force's bureau of operations, denied media reports that Chinese fighter planes have approached the middle line of the Taiwan Strait over the past few days.

"We have seen no such signs in recent days," Peng said at the press conference.

But he revealed that the air force had made such a discovery earlier.

Since former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) made the special state-to-state statement three years ago, it has not been unusual for Chinese fighter planes to fly into the Taiwan Strait, defense officials said.

Chinese Jian-7 and Jian-6 fighter planes regularly appear on radar screens monitoring China's southeast coast, officials said.

These fighters usually fly into the Taiwan Strait in groups of two or four, but do not tend to stay long over the body of water.

"There is no need to panic about such sightings. It is necessary to make the public understand it," officials said.