Chinese Navy Ship Deploys Sonar Buoy Near Taiwan After U.S. Transit

TaiwanPlus News

In the past few days, over a dozen Chinese naval ships have been reported around Taiwan, with one vessel spotted in the northeast reportedly towing a sonar buoy. The increased activity comes after U.S. warships transited the Taiwan Strait.

Transcript

00:00More and more Chinese military ships are operating around Taiwan.

00:07In the past few days, over a dozen naval ships have been reported around the country.

00:12One ship spotted in the northeast was reportedly towing a sonar buoy,

00:17most likely gathering intelligence.

00:23The surge in activity comes as two U.S. warships sail through the Taiwan Strait.

00:28It's the first transit mission of its kind under the new Trump administration.

00:32China denounced the operation and doubled down on its claims over Taiwan,

00:37saying that these transits increase security risks.

00:58Over the past year, Beijing conducted some of its largest military exercises in history around Taiwan,

01:09deploying its largest naval fleet in three decades

01:12and carrying out three large-scale military drills in the region.

01:16With the growing Chinese activity, Taiwan's military is on alert,

01:21committed to protecting the country's maritime borders.

01:28I'm not a troublemaker. I don't need to explain this further.

01:33The Ministry of National Defense publishes a lot of information on the Taiwan Strait every day,

01:37sending a large number of warships to cross the Taiwan Strait,

01:41and even entering the airspace around us to carry out such targeted and threatening military exercises.

01:49This is the main role of the Communist army.

01:52The heightened military pressure around Taiwan has sparked concern from observers

01:57about the effects it could have on the rest of the world.

02:00Taiwan sits in a strategic spot in the Indo-Pacific

02:03and at the center of some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

02:07In recent weeks, suspicious cargo ships have been seen sailing around Taiwan

02:12and instead of delivering goods, have reportedly been looking for submarine cables,

02:17vital for Taiwan's internet connection with the rest of the globe.

02:20Some of these cables have already been cut.

02:23The entire world is now thinking about cables,

02:25not just because of course what's going around Taiwan,

02:28but what's going on in the Baltic Sea and other places.

02:33And so I think that there will be an effort generally to begin to try to harden the cable system, right?

02:39But there are a lot of cables and you can't just replace them all instantly.

02:43It's very expensive and takes a long time.

02:46With so much maritime activity around Taiwan,

02:49the military here is trying to adapt to this concerning reality,

02:53not only defending the country's sovereignty,

02:56but helping to protect key areas vital to the international community.

03:01Ryan Wu and Jaime O'Connor for Taiwan Plus.

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