China military activity rises in Western Pacific: Taiwan intel chief

Taipei, July 6 (CNA) Chinese naval activity in the western Pacific has increased, as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) enters its peak annual exercise season, Taiwan's top intelligence official said Monday, confirming an earlier warning by a senior National Security Council (NSC) official.

The period from July to September is typically the busiest time of the year for Chinese military exercises, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) told reporters on the sidelines of a legislative hearing.

As of Monday, however, Taiwan had identified four Chinese naval formations operating in the western Pacific, one in the South Pacific, two south of Japan's Amami Ōshima, and one off Santa Ana on the Philippines' coast, which represented an uptick this year, according to Tsai.

"Overall, we are seeing an upward trend in the mobilization of Chinese naval forces during this peak exercise season," he said.

His assessment followed a warning last Friday by NSC Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who said that China's expanding maritime deployments reflected broader strategic ambitions.

In "a clear sign of its expansionism," China had deployed more than 110 Navy and coastguard vessels along the First Island Chain, Wu said in a post on X, without disclosing the source of the information.

"We've tracked a record number of over 110 PLA Navy and coastguard vessels," Wu wrote. "This bully has too much money to throw around, but none for its own people."

Chang Ching (張競), a research fellow at the Taiwan-based Society for Strategic Studies and a retired naval captain, offered a different explanation on Saturday.

He said many of the Chinese vessels had likely left their home ports to avoid destructive winds from an approaching typhoon, a routine action aimed at preserving operational readiness rather than signaling an unusual military buildup.

The First Island Chain is a strategic archipelago in the Western Pacific Ocean, extending from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula and encompassing Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia.