Chinese carrier drills and stepped-up incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the past few weeks are meant to send a message to Washington to stand down and back off, security sources in Taipei said.
The increased activity — which China, unusually, described as “combat drills” on Wednesday — has raised alarm in both Taipei and Washington, although security officials do not see it as a sign of an imminent attack.
Rather, at least some of the exercises are practicing “access denial” maneuvers to prevent foreign forces from coming to Taipei’s defense in a war, one official familiar with Taiwan’s security planning said.
Photo: Reuters
“China claimed that the drills are near Taiwan, but judging by their location it’s actually meant for the US military,” said the official in Taiwan, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As China sailed an aircraft carrier group near Taiwan last week, its air force simulated attacks on US ships, although no US Navy vessels were known to be in the area at the time, the source said.
The US Navy has been carrying out regular transits of the Taiwan Strait.
One Western security source said that the almost daily flights by Chinese anti-submarine aircraft in the northernmost part of the South China Sea were probably a response to US missions there, including by submarines, or to show the Pentagon that China can hunt for US submarines.
“They are not chasing Taiwanese subs,” the source said, pointing to Taiwan’s own tiny fleet of four, two of which date from World War II.
The US Navy does not give details of any submarine patrols near Taiwan or in the South China Sea.
US President Joe Biden’s White House has maintained a tough-on-China stance inherited from former US president Donald Trump’s administration. That has included more visible support for Taiwan, angering China.
Two US military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that although the US was concerned about Chinese activity around Taiwan, there was no sense of an imminent attack.
“For the past five years, China has been the centerpiece of the United States’ national defense strategy. So of course we’re concerned,” one official said.
The Ministry of National Defense said it was keeping a close watch on “enemy movements” and that it has combat plans to deal with scenarios for a Chinese attack. It did not elaborate.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense and the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet did not respond to requests for comment.
Although China has escalated its rhetoric in response to US warships passing through the Taiwan Strait, a US defense official said that Washington had not seen any kind of operational military escalation by the Chinese in response.
In a statement, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the US has “swelled the arrogance of Taiwan independence forces.”
Washington “bears an inescapable responsibility for tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” it added.
A senior US administration official said that regardless of who Beijing’s incursions were aimed at, their effect was direct “intimidation and coercion” of Taiwan.
“Our operations there have been in a pretty steady state consistently,” the official said. “So I don’t think there’s an increased pace of US military operations that are necessarily driving what Beijing is doing. That feels a little bit like an excuse there for what they’re doing.”
The US Navy this month took the rare step of publishing a photograph on its main Web site of a US warship in the Philippine Sea watching China’s Liaoning carrier.
Raising the stakes, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy said for the first time last week that carrier drills near Taiwan would become routine.
Another US warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait two days after China’s announcement of its carrier maneuvers, part of what the Pentagon refers to as “routine” transits that have prompted Beijing to accuse Washington of causing regional tensions.
“China’s top concern in any Taiwan contingency would be preventing or at least blunting armed intervention by the US,” said Greg Poling, a maritime security expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So demonstrating increased ability to deny US access is a coercive message sent to both Washington and Taipei.”
The Han Kuang exercises, the nation’s major war games, are to start today and run for five days. The drills are to include a military aircraft emergency takeoff and landing exercise on a regular roadway on Wednesday, featuring all three fighter jet models in Taiwan’s fleet, a military source said last week. The drill is to begin at 6:30am on a 3km section of Provincial Highway No. 1 in Pingtung County’s Jiadong Township (佳冬), and feature an Indigenous Defense Fighter, an F-16V, a Mirage 2000-5 and an E-2K Hawkeye early warning aircraft, the source said. The emergency landing and takeoff drill aims to
MRNA VACCINE: Heart inflammation is rare, but possible after a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot, and students need to be aware of possible side effects, an expert said As Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccinations for students aged 12 to 17 are to begin on campuses on Thursday next week, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday urged recipients to be especially watchful for five signs of possible myocarditis or pericarditis, which are rare adverse reactions to some COVID-19 vaccines. The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices convener Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎) joined the CECC’s daily news briefing to report on possible side effects after receiving a BioNTech vaccine. Lee said that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been observed in people in the US who have received mRNA COVID-19
Taiwan on Friday accused China of seeking to use the Honduran election to “create controversy” and undermine Taiwan’s long-standing ties with the country, saying it would strive to win support for Honduras’ relations with Taipei. Honduras’ main left-wing opposition party, the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), led by ousted former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, has said that if it wins November’s presidential election it would seek to “readjust” the country’s debt and establish diplomatic relations with China. Honduras is one of 15 UN member countries that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has already warned Honduras not
WORKING TOGETHER: Masahisa Sato said that the Liberal Democratic Party is aiming to share ideas about Taiwan-related policies and improve ties with Taiwan Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly being threatened by China, and like-minded nations should work together to resist such threats, Japanese politicians said. Japanese House of Representatives members Keiji Furuya and Masahisa Sato made the comments in a video played on Friday at a conference held by the Taiwan Japan Academy in Taipei. Furuya praised President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration for its efforts in reinforcing exchanges with countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia through the New Southbound Policy. Taiwan also has interests in the Pacific Islands region, but they have come under threat from China in the past few years,
RSS