Taiwan Will Shoot Down Chinese Balloon If Poses Threat: Official

The Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, S.C., on Feb. 4, 2023. Randall Hill/Reuters

Taiwan’s military will take measures to shoot down Chinese balloons if they pose a threat to national security, a defense official said on Feb. 13, amid mounting military threats posed by China’s communist regime.

In an interview with Bloomberg, defense ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said that Taiwan will adopt appropriate measures to new threats, “including shooting threats down, according to the level of concern.”

“The ministry has rules in terms of response and will continue revising the rules in a timely manner to respond to new threats such as balloons,” Sun told the news outlet.

Beijing has flown “dozens” of balloons across Taiwan’s airspace in recent years, and such incursions have occurred at least once a month, the Financial Times reported, citing senior Taiwanese officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“They come very frequently, the last one just a few weeks ago,” one of the officials said.

Taiwan’s military said on Feb. 10 it detected four Chinese balloons flying over the self-ruled island in February and March 2022, and urged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to refrain from any actions that would harm regional stability, Taiwan News reported.

“Some of the balloons are fielded by the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] Air Force and some by the Rocket Force,” the second official said, noting that Taiwan’s military normally deploys aircraft to monitor the balloons.

On Feb. 1, the United States shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it drifted eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean. The CCP condemned the U.S. move and claimed that the balloon was a civilian airship that had been blown off course.

The balloon, described by U.S. officials as a “high altitude surveillance balloon,” was first spotted on Feb. 1 above an airfield in Montana, one of three U.S. states where the nuclear missile fields are based.

It drifted over North Carolina in Asheville and then near Charlotte on the morning of Feb. 4.

The presence of the balloon has exacerbated the already tense relations between the United States and China and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned trip to Beijing earlier this month.

China-Taiwan Tensions

Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949. Still, the CCP regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be united with mainland China by any means necessary.

Chinese incursions into Taiwan have occurred almost daily as the CCP has increased military pressure on the self-ruled island. Taiwan’s military detected 18 Chinese aircraft and four vessels on Feb. 12, with 11 of the aircraft crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line.

CIA Director William Burns said on Feb. 2 the United States is aware “as a matter of intelligence” that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Burns said that Xi’s military order may not represent his timeline for the CCP’s invasion of Taiwan, but it demonstrates his “seriousness” in pursuing this goal.

“Our assessment at CIA is that I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s ambitions with regard to Taiwan,” Burns said at an event at Georgetown University in Washington.

A missile is launched from an unspecified location in China on Aug. 4, 2022. The Chinese military fired missiles into waters near Taiwan as part of its planned exercises on Aug. 4. CCTV via AP

In September 2022, Taiwan’s military shot down an unidentified civilian drone that invaded its airspace as the CCP increased military drills near Taiwan in retaliation against former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan in August.

“They repeatedly ignored our warnings to leave, and we had no choice but to exercise self-defense and shoot,” Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang said. “This is the most appropriate reaction after repeated restraint and warnings.”

The CCP responded that Taiwan was trying to “hype up tensions” over the incident, which follows the island’s complaints of harassment regarding drones from China flying close to the Kinmen islands as Beijing stages military drills around Taiwan.

Eva Fu and Reuters contributed to this report.