Taiwan monitoring amid potential large-scale PLA exercise: Official

Taipei, Dec. 10 (CNA) The military will closely monitor any large-scale Chinese military exercise that may be held near Taiwan on Saturday, which marks the anniversary of the start of the Nanjing Massacre, Colonel Lo Cheng-yu (羅正宇) said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The Nanjing Massacre was the killings of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and prisoners of war and mass sexual assaults on women by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing from 1937 to 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

It remains a defining historical trauma in China and continues to shape its political narratives and diplomacy, although China does not routinely hold military drills to mark the occasion.

Lo, who serves in the Office of the Deputy Chief of General Staff for Intelligence at Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND), did not respond directly to media questions on whether an exercise similar in scale to the Joint Sword-2024 A and B drills held by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) near Taiwan last year could occur.

He said only that the military has been monitoring movements by the PLA using its joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.

Lo added that the ministry is also tracking political, economic and social developments within China that could signal an imminent operation.

Earlier this month, an unnamed Taiwanese official handling national security affairs told reporters that China "could" launch a "Joint Sword C" drill in the proximity of Taiwan on Saturday if its recently intensified hostilities toward Japan "do not find an exit."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate on why tensions with Japan could prompt a Chinese operation near Taiwan.

Tensions between China and Japan rose after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month that a Chinese military attack on Taiwan could amount to a "survival-threatening" situation for Japan and trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Reuters reported on Dec. 4 that China had been massing naval assets from the southern Yellow Sea through the East China Sea into the South China Sea since mid-November.

At one point, the number of vessels exceeded 100, the highest ever recorded in the region, the report said, citing four unnamed security officials.

Asked Wednesday about the whereabouts of China's three aircraft carriers, Lo said the Liaoning transited the Miyako Strait on Dec. 6 and entered the Western Pacific to conduct takeoff and landing drills.

There have been no indications that either the Shandong or the Fujian is preparing to leave port, he added.

Meanwhile, Japan's Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Wednesday two Russian nuclear-capable Tu-95 bombers were joined by two Chinese H-6 bombers conducting a joint flight around Japan from between Okinawa's main island and Miyako Island to the waters off Shikoku in the Pacific Ocean.

Eight Chinese J-16 fighter jets accompanied these bombers, and a Russian A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft was also present, according to Koizumi.

The incursion followed an incident on Dec. 6 in which Chinese J-15 fighter jets that took off from the Liaoning locked their radars onto two different F-15 aircraft from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force near Okinawa.