Taiwan has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and has sent its own naval and air forces to keep watch, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
While the ministry offers daily updates of the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week.
Late last night, the ministry said a Chinese destroyer and a frigate had entered waters to the southwest of Penghu, home to major Taiwanese navy and air bases and close to the Taiwan side of the Strait.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
Taiwan's military "closely monitored the formation and responded appropriately using naval and air forces," the ministry added, without elaborating.
The ministry showed color pictures of both ships taken from the air, but did not give an exact location.
China's Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This morning, in its daily update of Chinese activities over the past 24 hours, the ministry said a total of nine Chinese warships were operating around the nation, with 22 military aircraft detected.
While it showed a map of where the Chinese aircraft were, mostly in the Strait and to the north and southwest of Taiwan, it did not provide any other information about the location of the warships.
Speaking to coast guard officers in Taipei today, President William Lai (賴清德) said China's "gray zone" operations — irregular tactics to exhaust a foe without resorting to open combat — and psychological pressure have grown day by day.
"They seek to manufacture a new normal that undermines the 'status quo,'" he added.
The abilities of the coast guard, which is on the front lines of monitoring Chinese activities in an auxiliary role to the navy, would be strengthened, Lai said.
That includes integrated sea-and-air surveillance capabilities, with an expanded deployment of drones, next-generation radar systems and infrared thermal imaging systems, he added.
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