Chinese naval and air forces conducted patrols around a flashpoint reef in the South China Sea yesterday, after a slew of tense encounters with the Philippines over the past few months.
The patrols coincided with joint exercises carried out by the US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines in Manila’s exclusive economic zone and within the South China Sea.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several countries, including Taiwan and the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Photo: Reuters
Its claims include the waters around Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) — which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 — where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command yesterday said it held air and sea patrols.
The triangular chain of reefs and rocks is 240km west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and about 900km from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan.
Beijing said the training activities around the shoal included “reconnaissance, early warning, and air-sea patrols.”
“Certain countries outside the region are stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, creating instability in the region,” the Southern Theater Command said in a statement.
“China holds indisputable sovereignty over Huangyan Island and its adjacent waters,” it added.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense in a statement said that a joint drill involving the five countries took place in the South China Sea.
Its maritime destroyer Sazanami participated in the exercises, the ministry said.
The US said the maritime exercises conducted with its allies demonstrated “a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The Australian Department of Defence said that the HMAS Sydney and a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft were participating in exercises aimed at “upholding the right to freedom of navigation and overflight.”
Tensions between China and the Philippines have flared in the past few months during a series of confrontations in the waters around the contested Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) and Sabina Shoal (Xianbin, 仙濱暗沙).
In July, the two sides said they had reached a provisional deal on resupply missions to a Philippine ship, the Sierra Madre, which is grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal with a garrison on board, aimed at asserting Manila’s claims to the reef.
Beijing on Friday said it had “supervised” a Philippine ship as it delivered supplies as part of a resupply mission to the grounded vessel at the shoal.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
RSS