The military has spotted China's new aircraft carrier, the Fujian (福建), for the first time since it was commissioned making a transit through the Taiwan Strait and released a surveillance photograph of it.
In a statement today, the Ministry of National Defense said it closely monitored the Fujian's passage yesterday, without providing any other details.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The photograph of the ship showed no aircraft on its flight deck.
It was the first time Taiwan's military had seen it navigating through the Taiwan Strait since the vessel was commissioned early last month, the ministry said.
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said at a legislative hearing today that his ministry believed the aircraft carrier did not have any aircraft on it, as it was headed back to its manufacturer on Shanghai's Changxing Island to improve some of its flaws.
According to China's state-run media Xinhua news agency, the Fujian entered service during a ceremony marking its handover to the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Navy in Hainan Province on Nov. 5 that was presided over by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
It is China's third aircraft carrier and China's first designed domestically and also the first capable of more advanced catapult-assisted take-offs — a powerful launch system to rapidly accelerate fixed-wing planes for short-distance flight.
As of the end of last month, PLA aircraft, including fighter jets, had flown 4,935 sorties in Taiwan's vicinity, ministry data showed.
The full year total was likely to surpass the previous record of 5,107 flown last year, up from 2,799 in 2022, according to CommonWealth Magazine figures based on publicly available ministry data.
Of the sorties in the year through last month, 3,467 had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, already topping the previous full year record of 3,074 set last year, signaling a further ratcheting up of pressure by the PLA on Taiwan, the data showed.
The median line of the Strait was once considered a tacit boundary between Taiwan and China that was rarely breached by either side.
The campaign has continued unabated this month, with nine sorties of PLA warplanes detected near Taiwan from 6am yesterday to 6am today, the ministry said.
Five out of the nine sorties crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and entered the northern and southwestern sections of Taiwan's air defense identification zone.
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