Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) today said that Taiwan is closely monitoring China's military exercises in the region and has assessed that the latest round would be held off the coast of China rather than near Taiwan.
Nonetheless, the Ministry of National Defense is preparing for various scenarios, Koo told reporters in Taipei, after China's Maritime Safety Administration issued no-sail notices late last week for five marine areas ahead of military exercises scheduled for today through Saturday.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The five no-sail areas listed are in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea and Bohai Sea, where the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is expected to carry out live-fire drills, Chinese authorities said.
Koo said the Taiwan military has assessed that the exercises would be held near China's coastline and would involve only PLA artillery units, but Taiwan continues to closely monitor the situation.
The Chinese government has not explicitly said whether the exercises were a response to President William Lai's (賴清德) Double Ten National Day address on Saturday, but it claimed that they were a deterrent to any move by Taiwan toward "independence."
In a social media post yesterday, Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Chen Xi (陳曦) said Lai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was "aggressively pursuing a 'Taiwan independence' agenda."
"The routine military exercises conducted by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) around the island [Taiwan] serve to deter reckless 'Taiwan independence' moves and plots involving foreign interference, as well as to safeguard the safety and well-being of the Taiwanese public," Chen wrote.
The Maritime and Port Bureau told reporters in Taipei today that three of the designated PLA exercise areas in the Bohai and Yellow seas were outside Taiwan's waters.
The other two designated exercise areas in the East and South China seas are within China's coastal waters, 159 nautical miles (294km) and 588 nautical miles from Taiwan respectively, the bureau said.
Therefore, the PLA's six-day exercises are unlikely to have any impact on vessels operating near Taiwan, the bureau added.
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