China naval activity around Taiwan signals attempt to restrict foreign involvement: Official

Taipei, Dec. 10 (CNA) The uptick in China's military activity on Monday formed two "walls" east of Taiwan that aim to secure control of the Taiwan Strait and block the access of other countries, a Taiwanese defense official said Tuesday.

In a statement issued Tuesday morning, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said it had detected 21 Chinese vessels -- 12 warships and nine official ships -- in Taiwan's vicinity, though it did not specify the exact area involved.

That is significantly fewer than the around 90 Chinese ships that Reuters, quoting an unnamed security official, had reported as being "near" Taiwan on Monday.

Asked by CNA Tuesday about the difference at a news conference, Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升), head of the MND's Office of Deputy Chief of General Staff for Intelligence, said the ministry's intelligence showed only 21 ships were near Taiwan.

Hsieh explained the approximately 90 ships reported by Reuters were likely an aggregate of information and included Chinese ships logged by Japan and other neighboring countries in a larger area.

While declining to comment on the specific locations of the approximately 70 other ships, Hsieh said the deployments by the Chinese Navy extended to the West Pacific in an area between the first and second island chains, forming a "wall."

Meanwhile, a larger-than-usual fleet of Chinese ships had formed another wall in waters east of the country inside Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), Hsieh said.

"With these two walls, they are sending a clear message: The Taiwan Strait is their internal waters, and cross-strait issues should be handled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Republic of China," Hsieh said.

The first island chain refers to the archipelago consisting of the Aleutian Islands, the Japanese archipelago, South Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Greater Sunda Islands.

The second island chain lies further east and includes the Izu Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands, Guam, Palau and Halmahera Island.

Hsieh noted that while China's military maneuvers around Taiwan since Monday are not "military exercises," and China has not announced the start of any military exercises in Taiwan's vicinity, it has deployed several PLA theaters-worth of naval force to the West Pacific where it has formed a "considerable area denial force against foreign forces."

An "area denial force" refers to a military capability or strategy designed to prevent or restrict the movement of enemy forces into a specific area.

Hsieh said the MND has not ruled out the possibility of China escalating its current military deployments into a drill or an attack on Taiwan because it is always prepared for worst-case scenarios.

Major General Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星) from the MND's Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Operations and Planning added that deployments by the Armed Forces factored in surprise enemy attacks and took into account what the enemy would most likely do next and how the situation could evolve.

For example, Tung said, the military has conducted combat preparedness exercises and ordered troops to take their strategic positions according to wartime deployments based on the current threats.

Meanwhile, the MND recorded 47 PLA aircraft in Taiwan's ADIZ in the 24-hour period starting 6 a.m. Monday.

Of those aircraft, which included fighter jets and drones, one crossed the Taiwan Strait median line while 15 crossed its extension and entered the southwestern part of the ADIZ, the flight map released by the MND showed.

An ADIZ is a self-declared area in which a country claims the right to identify, locate and control approaching foreign aircraft but is not part of its territorial airspace as defined by international law.