This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
China has set up a live-fire exercise area 40 nautical miles (75 kilometers) off the coast of the Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung without warning in a provocation to the region’s security that posed a risk to air and sea transport, Taiwan’s ministry of defense said Wednesday.
It said Beijing “blatantly violated international norms by unilaterally designating” the drill zone.
It strongly condemned the zone and said in a statement it had “immediately dispatched naval, air and land forces to monitor and take appropriate measures” after learning of it via “temporary radio broadcast” between the two sides in the area.
As a normal practice, relevant authorities of coastal countries are obliged to issue prior warnings to vessels that may enter the exercise areas in order to avoid accidents.
“This move not only poses a high risk to the navigation safety of international flights and ships at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability,” it said.
The Taiwan ministry also said that in the 24 hours up to Wednesday morning, it had detected 32 sorties by Chinese aircraft and warships near Taiwan. Twenty-two of them crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait which serves as the de-facto border between the island and the Chinese mainland.
On Tuesday, the Taiwan Coast Guard detained a Chinese crewed civilian vessel it suspected of cutting a communications cable off Taiwan’s coast. The island’s government said it couldn’t rule out that the Togo-registered tanker was engaging in “gray zone” tactics for Beijing.
However, on Wednesday, the Taiwanese defense ministry told RFA that Chinese vessels had left the designated live-fire exercise area near Kaohsiung.
The message added that the Taiwanese military “will continue to monitor the developments in the surrounding sea and airspace, and dispatch appropriate troops to be on alert and respond.”
The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday declined to comment on the zone for exercises off Taiwan.
China has been holding live-fire exercises across the region over the past week.
On Monday, it began shooting live ammunition in a four-day drill in the Gulf of Tonkin shared with Vietnam, days after Hanoi released a map defining its territory in the gulf.
Last Friday, several commercial flights between Australia and New Zealand had to be diverted as Chinese warships conducted live-fire shooting in the Tasman sea. The same flotilla held another exercise a day after near New Zealand.
Both drills were held in international waters but Canberra complained that Beijing did not provide it with adequate notice.
On Sunday, China’s defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said that Australian complaints were “hyped up” and “inconsistent with the facts”.
The past week’s exercises around the region are a clear example of saber rattling according to regional specialist Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor at Australia’s University of New South Wales.
“Given China’s continued bullying of the Philippines, Beijing is sending a message to regional states as well as the Trump Administration that Beijing will defend its sovereign rights and interests whenever they are challenged,” he told Radio Free Asia.
Source: American Military News