Taiwan on Alert With Major Chinese Military Activity Around Country

TaiwanPlus News

Taiwan is raising its alert level after more than 90 Chinese naval and coast guard ships were spotted in the area, though the defense ministry has yet to officially call the movements drills.

Transcript

00:00Taiwan's military says it is responding to Chinese military drills that may now are taking

00:06place around the country.

00:08Jaime Okon joins us live from our newsroom in Taipei.

00:12Jaime, what do we know so far?

00:15Well, Leslie, Taiwan's defense ministry says that China has started suspected military

00:23exercises that take place on Monday and will last until Wednesday.

00:27The defense ministry says that China has set up seven reserve zones near Fujian and

00:32eastern Zhejiang province, but it's still too early to tell what exactly is going on

00:37in these zones and if they will disrupt shipping and transportation in the region.

00:42Already Taiwan has reported more than 90 Chinese coast guard and naval ships operating in the

00:47region.

00:48Now, in response to that activity, Taiwan says that it has already raised its alert

00:51level and has also set up an emergency command center to monitor all of this activity.

00:57This is what the defense ministry had to say earlier about these suspected exercises.

01:02The Chinese military will uphold the principle of not escalating conflicts and causing disputes

01:06and will properly respond to all kinds of military activities in the gray zone.

01:10It is capable, determined, and confident in ensuring national security.

01:17Now Taiwan says that it has also dispatched its own military forces to what it's describing

01:21as strategic locations, but they haven't clarified what that exactly means.

01:26China also commented earlier on this activity saying that Taiwan doesn't have a defense

01:31ministry.

01:32That's because it sees Taiwan as part of its own territory and that's all that we know

01:36so far.

01:37All right, Jaime, how do these drills compare to military exercises in the past?

01:44How serious are these movements?

01:47Well, there's been a lot of anticipation after Taiwan's president, Lai Qingde, completed

01:54his first overseas trip since taking office, visiting allies in the Pacific.

01:59That trip also included a stopover in the U.S. territory of Guam as well as the U.S.

02:03state of Hawaii.

02:04Now, that trip angered China and many were not asking if Beijing was going to conduct

02:09exercises but when.

02:11The last time China conducted large-scale exercises, those were called Joint Sword A

02:16and Joint Sword B, and both have been in response to what Lai says and does in respect to boosting

02:22Taiwan's sovereignty.

02:24That last exercise, Joint Sword B, saw a record amount of fighter jets.

02:27Over 150 military aircraft were spotted around the area.

02:33Security officials cited by Reuters are saying that this exercise, this activity, could be

02:38larger in scale compared to previous drills, but they're still trying to monitor the zones

02:43because some of those zones stretch from waters east of Japan all the way down to Hong Kong.

02:48So this is a massive activity zone.

02:51It's also still too early to tell if these exercises are a continuation of the Joint

02:56Sword series.

02:57This would make it Joint Sword C. The defense ministry says that they're going to open a

03:01press conference tomorrow and it's likely there they'll get more information on what

03:06exactly is going on.

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