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Taiwan on Alert With Major Chinese Military Activity Around Country
TaiwanPlus News
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12/9/2024
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.
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00:00
Taiwan's military says it is responding to Chinese military drills that may now are taking
00:06
place around the country.
00:08
Jaime Okon joins us live from our newsroom in Taipei.
00:12
Jaime, what do we know so far?
00:15
Well, Leslie, Taiwan's defense ministry says that China has started suspected military
00:23
exercises that take place on Monday and will last until Wednesday.
00:27
The defense ministry says that China has set up seven reserve zones near Fujian and
00:32
eastern Zhejiang province, but it's still too early to tell what exactly is going on
00:37
in these zones and if they will disrupt shipping and transportation in the region.
00:42
Already Taiwan has reported more than 90 Chinese coast guard and naval ships operating in the
00:47
region.
00:48
Now, in response to that activity, Taiwan says that it has already raised its alert
00:51
level and has also set up an emergency command center to monitor all of this activity.
00:57
This is what the defense ministry had to say earlier about these suspected exercises.
01:02
The Chinese military will uphold the principle of not escalating conflicts and causing disputes
01:06
and will properly respond to all kinds of military activities in the gray zone.
01:10
It is capable, determined, and confident in ensuring national security.
01:17
Now Taiwan says that it has also dispatched its own military forces to what it's describing
01:21
as strategic locations, but they haven't clarified what that exactly means.
01:26
China also commented earlier on this activity saying that Taiwan doesn't have a defense
01:31
ministry.
01:32
That's because it sees Taiwan as part of its own territory and that's all that we know
01:36
so far.
01:37
All right, Jaime, how do these drills compare to military exercises in the past?
01:44
How serious are these movements?
01:47
Well, there's been a lot of anticipation after Taiwan's president, Lai Qingde, completed
01:54
his first overseas trip since taking office, visiting allies in the Pacific.
01:59
That trip also included a stopover in the U.S. territory of Guam as well as the U.S.
02:03
state of Hawaii.
02:04
Now, that trip angered China and many were not asking if Beijing was going to conduct
02:09
exercises but when.
02:11
The last time China conducted large-scale exercises, those were called Joint Sword A
02:16
and Joint Sword B, and both have been in response to what Lai says and does in respect to boosting
02:22
Taiwan's sovereignty.
02:24
That last exercise, Joint Sword B, saw a record amount of fighter jets.
02:27
Over 150 military aircraft were spotted around the area.
02:33
Security officials cited by Reuters are saying that this exercise, this activity, could be
02:38
larger in scale compared to previous drills, but they're still trying to monitor the zones
02:43
because some of those zones stretch from waters east of Japan all the way down to Hong Kong.
02:48
So this is a massive activity zone.
02:51
It's also still too early to tell if these exercises are a continuation of the Joint
02:56
Sword series.
02:57
This would make it Joint Sword C. The defense ministry says that they're going to open a
03:01
press conference tomorrow and it's likely there they'll get more information on what
03:06
exactly is going on.
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