Taiwan details surge in Chinese military activity, did not detect live fire

Taiwan's defence ministry on Thursday reported a surge in Chinese military activity the previous day, but officials said they did not detect any live-fire exercises in a drill zone off the island's southwestern coast.

Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, said on Wednesday the Chinese military had set up a zone for "shooting" drills in the southwestern part of the Taiwan Strait, off the major population centres of Kaohsiung and Pingtung.

Taiwan's government condemned the move as dangerous, provocative and a threat to commercial flights and shipping, adding no prior notice was given. China has yet to comment.

In its daily morning update of Chinese military activities in the prior 24 hours, Taiwan's defence ministry said it had detected 45 Chinese military aircraft and 14 navy ships operating around the island. They included seven ships in the Chinese-declared drill zone, 40 nautical miles off Taiwan.

In an accompanying map, the ministry showed the location of the drill zone which it said was 70 nautical miles long and 20 nautical miles wide, though well outside of Taiwanese territorial waters.

NO LIVE FIRE DETECTED

Two senior Taiwanese officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation, said Taiwan did not detect any live-fire shooting in China's "drill zone" and there was no further escalation of military tensions.

They said the Chinese move was very similar to China's other recent military activity in the region, such as in the South China Sea and that off Australia's coast, during which China's navy did not give adequate notice about their exercises.

"This is extremely rare and exceeds general expectations," one of the officials said, referring to the Chinese military's move of running exercises without prior warning.

"Allies are exchanging ideas," the official said. "The democratic camp must do some risk management for our defence."

Taiwan's foreign ministry said in a statement that China was the "biggest troublemaker" in the region.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls on the international community to continue to pay attention to the security of the Taiwan Strait and the region, and to jointly condemn China's repeated and unilateral actions," it said on Thursday.

Speaking in Washington on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump declined to comment in response to a question about whether the United States would ever allow China to take control of Taiwan by force.

However, in a separate interview with Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the government had a long-standing position on Taiwan it was not going to abandon, namely being against any forced or coercive change in Taiwan's status.

"America has existing commitments that it has made to prevent that from happening and to react to it, and that would be executed on...The Chinese are aware of this as well," he said, when asked what would the US do if China attacked.

CHINA HOLDS PARLIAMENT MEETING NEXT WEEK

Taiwan, whose government rejects China's sovereignty claims, has repeatedly complained of Chinese military activities, including several rounds of full-scale war games during the past three years.

Next week, China holds the annual meeting of its largely rubber stamp parliament, the country's biggest domestic political event, where it will unveil its defence budget for the year.

March also marks the 20th anniversary of China's "anti-secession law" that allows it to use force on Taiwan in extreme cases, though the legislation is vague.

A third senior Taiwan official, who is familiar with government policy towards China, told Reuters that Taipei has made "the best preparations for the worst-case scenario" in the event China escalates its rhetoric on Taiwan ahead of that anniversary, adding pre-parliament drills were "very rare".

"They escalated the level of intimidation for no reason. It is not conducive to cross-strait stability and relations at all," the official added.

This week, Taiwan also detained a Chinese-linked cargo vessel on suspicion of damaging an undersea communications cable.

Late on Wednesday, prosecutors in the southern city of Tainan said they had ordered the ship's Chinese captain detained, and prohibited the seven other crew members, also all Chinese, from leaving Taiwan.

China said on Wednesday that Taiwan was casting aspersions before the facts were clear, and that undersea cables around the world are routinely damaged by accident.