Taiwan Demands Beijing End Suspected Military Drills

A Taiwanese Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jet prepares to land at an Air Force base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Dec. 10, 2024. I-Hwa Cheng/AFP via Getty Images

Taiwan has demanded Beijing immediately stop its “military intimidation” amid a suspected Chinese war game near the island.

In a statement issued on Dec. 11, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the recent activities of the Chinese navy and coast guard had increased tensions in the region and disrupted commercial shipping.

The ministry said the Chinese regime’s “provocative actions” are a violation of international law, and demanded Beijing “immediately stop [its] military intimidation and all irrational behavior that harms the peace and stability of the region.”

Taiwan, or the Republic of China (ROC), is the continuation of an exiled power that controlled mainland China before the communist takeover in 1949. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never ruled Taiwan, but it claims sovereignty over the island and has never ruled out annexing the island by force.

Since 2016, communist China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has regularly deployed military aircraft and patrol ships to encircle Taiwan. It has also conducted four “Joint Sword” war games; two in 2023 and two this year.

Since Dec. 9, the PLA has ramped up its movements by sending a higher than usual number of planes and vessels into the Taiwan Strait amid suspicions that it’s conducting a fifth “Joint Sword” exercise around Taiwan.

According to the daily update published by the ROC’s Ministry of National Defense, in the 24-hour period before the morning of Dec. 11, Taiwan had detected 53 Chinese military aircraft, 11 Chinese navy vessels, and eight additional Chinese “official” ships, referring to vessels from ostensibly civilian agencies such as the coast guard.

The total number, 72, was slightly higher than that of the day before (68) and almost four times the number before that (20).

The intensified movements, along with China’s three-day reservation of airspace zones along the Taiwan Strait during the same period, came three days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te returned to Taipei from a diplomatic trip to South Pacific countries, during which he also visited Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam and spoke to several high-ranking U.S. lawmakers by phone and video.

Beijing previously expressed anger over Lai’s trip, and Taiwan’s security sources reportedly believed the PLA would stage a war game around Taiwan upon Lai’s return. But the Chinese regime never announced a war game before ramping up military activities this week.

Mao Ning, spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has declined to confirm or deny whether the PLA is or plans to conduct a military exercise this week, telling reporters in Beijing to ask “the responsible department.” She also reiterated the CCP’s territorial claim over Taiwan.

During the latest “Joint Sword” exercise in October, also known as 2024B, the PLA said the drill was “a stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces.”

The exercise was staged four days after Lai said China and Taiwan “do not belong to one another” in his national day speech.

ROC Defense Official: PLA Movements Are ‘Great Threats’

Taiwan’s military raised its alert on Dec. 9 following the increase in PLA activities.

Speaking in Taipei on Dec. 10, Taiwan’s defense ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of the 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections.

“The current scale is the largest compared to the previous four [war games],” Sun said. “Regardless of whether they have announced drills, they are posing a great threat to us.”

At the same press conference, senior ministry intelligence officer Hsieh Jih-sheng said China’s deployment in the First Island Chain—which runs from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China’s coastal seas—is aimed at area denial to prevent foreign forces from interfering.

The ministry said China’s navy is building two “walls” in the Pacific, one at the eastern end of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and the other further out in the Pacific.

“They are sending a very simple message with these two walls: trying to make the Taiwan Strait an internal sea” of China, Hsieh said.

Military ‘Parade’

Speaking to The Epoch Times on Dec. 10, researchers at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) said the absence of an announcement suggests the CCP is hoping to avoid provoking strong reactions from other countries.

“So one of the reasons the ROC Armed Forces disclosed the information is to draw attention to this at home and abroad,” said Hung Tzu-Chieh, associate fellow at the think tank’s division of Chinese politics, military and warfighting concepts.

Su Tzu-yun, director of the INDSR’s division of defense strategy and resources, said the Chinese navy’s activities between the first and the second island chains suggest it’s targeting the three U.S. aircraft carriers deployed in the Western Pacific as well as Taiwan, and that it was more of a “naval parade” or “demonstration” rather than a military exercise.

It’s a show of strength meant for other countries but also a propaganda campaign for China’s own citizens given the regime’s own political turmoil, he said.

Following the recent suspension of Adm. Miao Hua, a top CCP military official who was responsible for the military’s human resources and an ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, analysts told The Epoch Times that Miao’s suspension is a sign that Xi is facing a power crisis.

Shen Ming-Shih, director of the INDSR’s division of national security research, told The Epoch Times that the PLA’s activities do not appear to be a comprehensive war game.

“Although its number of navy and coast guard vessels have increased, there doesn’t seem to be any clearly defined operations, such as the exercise to besiege or blockade Taiwan during 2024B,” he said.

“It’s a pure show of force, or a routine exercise of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command.

“Because it coincides with some issues within the PLA, the scale of the exercise can’t be too big. If something goes wrong, or there are unforeseen circumstances, Xi could be affected.”

Epoch Times reporters Luo Ya and Catherine Yang and Reuters contributed to this report.