China’s armed forces are capable of blockading Taiwan’s key harbors and airports, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, offering its latest assessment of what it described as a “grave” military threat posed by its giant neighbor.
China has been ramping up military activity around Taiwan, including by repeatedly flying warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).
In a report it issues every two years, the ministry said China had launched what it called “gray zone” warfare, citing 554 “intrusions” by Chinese warplanes into its southwest ADIZ between September last year and the end of August.
Photo: Reuters
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also aims to complete the modernization of its forces by 2035 to “obtain superiority in possible operations against Taiwan and viable capabilities to deny foreign forces, posing a grave challenge to our national security,” the ministry said.
“At present, the PLA is capable of performing [a] local joint blockade against our critical harbors, airports, and outbound flight routes, to cut off our air and sea lines of communication and impact the flow of our military supplies and logistic resources,” the ministry said.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has vowed to defend Taiwan’s freedom and democracy.
She has made bolstering Taiwan’s defenses a priority, pledging to produce more domestically developed weapons, including submarines, and buying more equipment from the US, the nation’s most important arms supplier and international backer.
Last month, Taiwan reported 148 Chinese air force planes in its south and southwest ADIZ over a four-day period, marking a dramatic escalation in tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
“Its intimidating behavior does not only consume our combat power and shake our faith and morale, but also attempts to alter or challenge the status quo in the Taiwan Strait to ultimately achieve its goal of ‘seizing Taiwan without a fight,’” the ministry said.
To counter China’s attempt to “seize Taiwan swiftly whilst denying foreign interventions,” the ministry vowed to improve its “asymmetric warfare” capabilities to make any attack as painful and as difficult for China as possible.
That includes precision strikes by long-range missiles on targets in China, deployment of coastal minefields as well as boosting reserve training.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot