Thirty-three Chinese aircraft and five ships were detected around Taiwan in the 24-hour period before 6am, the Ministry of National Defense said today, after Beijing criticized President William Lai (賴清德) for calling Taiwan a country.
Of the aircraft, 24 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s northern, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said in a statement.
At about 1pm yesterday, Taiwanese fishers reportedly spotted two Chinese vessels 50 nautical miles (92.6km) off the coast of Hualien.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
In addition, 21 aircraft, including Su-30 fighters and Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, were detected operating near Taiwan between 9:40am and noon today, the ministry said, adding that 16 of them crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones.
China was “harassing” the airspace and waters around Taiwan in the name of “joint combat readiness patrols,” it said.
The armed forces “monitored the situation and employed [patrol] aircraft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems in response to the detected activities,” the ministry said.
Lai has since Sunday given two speeches in what is scheduled to be a series of 10 on “uniting the country.”
In his first speech, Lai said Taiwan is "of course a country" and that China has no legal or historical right to claim it.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on Monday said that Lai was intentionally distorting history to promote his “independence agenda” and that Taiwan has never been a country.
"It was a 'Taiwan independence' declaration that blatantly incited cross-strait confrontation, and a hodgepodge of 'Taiwan independence' fallacies and heresies full of errors and omissions," the office said in a statement.
"The fallacies fabricated by Lai in contravention of history, reality and jurisprudence will only be swept into the rubbish heap of history," it said.
Lai was simply stating historical facts and Beijing's belief that Taiwan has been Chinese since ancient times and is not a country is "just a fabricated lie without any basis," the Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.
"We call on the Chinese communist authorities to face up to the fact that the Republic of China [Taiwan] objectively exists and the status quo in the Taiwan Strait that 'the two sides are not subordinate to each other,'" it said.
Meanwhile, Beijing has said that it is impossible to "invade" what is already Chinese land.
Speaking yesterday to European ambassadors in Beijing, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said he was alarmed that the Democratic Progressive Party was "doing everything they can to try to move towards Taiwan independence, which is very dangerous."
There has been an uptick in Chinese military activity around Taiwan.
China's last war games around the nation were in April, and its air force and navy operate around Taiwan on a daily basis, sometimes using dozens of warplanes, the defense ministry has said.
Asked about US comments that Chinese drills are preparations for an attack on Taiwan, TAO spokesperson Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) told a separate briefing in Beijing that "Taiwan is a part of China; there is no invasion to speak of."
Additional reporting by Wang Chun-chi
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS