Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills.
The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement.
The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching the drills with its joint intelligence system.
The ministry also released two photographs showing its air force personnel operating its Lockheed P-3C Orion submarine-hunting aircraft as part of the joint intelligence system.
Its latest statement came three days after it first made public that it had been monitoring PLA activities and troop movements in Dacheng Bay on Thursday night.
The ministry’s daily report on PLA activities near Taiwan previously only focused on Chinese warplane and warship incursions into the nation’s air defense identification zone and across the Taiwan Strait median line.
Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday that it was making the information public after detecting “abnormity” concerning recent Chinese military movements around Taiwan, but did not elaborate any further.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), an academic from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, previously said that the ministry’s Thursday night announcement was likely meant as a form of “intelligence deterrence,” a concept proposed by the US military to show the PLA that Taiwan “knows every move you make.”
Meanwhile, Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow at the National Policy Foundation in Taipei, said that previous PLA drills at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay mostly focused on practicing military unloading exercises by using civilian semi-submersible vessels to move military vehicles and troops to designated locations.
Such a drill is meant to test the PLA’s capability in using civilian vessels to support joint island landing operations should Taiwan decide to intentionally damage its major ports and docks to prevent a Chinese invasion by sea, Chieh said.
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or
RSS