Tag: Taipei (Taiwan)

China Flies Record Number of Military Planes Near Taiwan

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The News China sent a record number of military aircraft toward the self-governed island democracy of Taiwan, prompting the island’s defense ministry on Monday to warn against what it called “destructive” harassment. The previous daily record of Chinese military flights near Taiwan was 91 planes, on April 10. Taiwan said it tracked 103 People’s Liberation Army aircraft entering its air defense identification zone in the 24 hours leading up to Monday morning. None entered Taiwan’s airspace. That tally included 40 aircraft that crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait,…

China Conducts Major Military Exercises in Western Pacific

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The joint exercises come after the United States conducted a series of military drills across the region in recent weeks with allies like Japan, Australia and the Philippines. On Saturday, the American and Canadian navies sailed ships through the Taiwan Strait. What We Know China’s Shandong aircraft carrier was one of at least 20 Chinese naval vessels spotted navigating waters around Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines starting on Tuesday, according to the Japanese and Taiwanese governments. Other vessels identified by Japanese officials included missile destroyers, frigates and supply ships. China…

China’s Military, ‘Chasing the Dream,’ Probes Taiwan’s Defenses

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China has been steadily intensifying military pressure on Taiwan over the past year, sending jets, drones, bombers and other planes farther and in greater numbers to extend an intimidating presence all around the island. Chinese naval ships and air force planes have been edging closer to Taiwan’s territorial seas and skies, probing the island’s vigilance and trying to wear down its military planes and ships. Chinese forces have also been operating more frequently in skies and waters off the island’s eastern coast, facing the West Pacific. China’s increasing presence there…

Liz Truss, Britain’s Briefest Prime Minister, Meets Taiwan’s Leader

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The last former British prime minister to visit Taiwan was Ms. Truss’s political idol, Margaret Thatcher, in 1992. Taiwan was willing to look past contention in Britain over Ms. Truss, said Chen Fang-yu, an assistant politics professor at Soochow University in Taipei. “Taiwan really needs more of this kind of attention from every country, because only if more people visit Taiwan and more speak up for Taiwan, will the Chinese Communist Party realize that many people are paying attention to Taiwan, and so they should not act rashly,” he said…

A Chinese Commonwealth? An Unpopular Idea Resurfaces in Taiwan.

Chin@Strategy

The K.M.T. has a long history of arguing for economic integration with China. The party’s roots date back to the nationalist army that lost a civil war against Chinese Communists in 1949 and escaped to Taiwan to regroup. K.M.T. officials, who initially ruled as a military dictatorship, were so committed to the dream of returning to the mainland for a rematch that, a Ming Chuan University professor told me, they routinely barred active-duty soldiers from getting married, out of fear soldiers would be diverted from their cause. The closest that…

What China’s Military Balloons Show About Its Spying Ambitions

Chin@Strategy

Now, as some smaller states — particularly those the United States describes as allies and partners — confront this new potential threat of surveillance, their options may be limited. What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source. Shooting down balloons is…

With Record Military Incursions, China Warns Taiwan and the U.S.

Chin@Strategy

China sent a record number of military aircraft to menace self-ruled Taiwan in a large show of force to the Biden administration, signaling that Beijing wants to maintain pressure on Taiwan even as some tensions between the superpowers are easing. The swarm of Chinese fighter jets, maritime patrol planes and drones that buzzed the airspace near Taiwan in the 24-hour period leading to Monday morning demonstrated Beijing’s appetite for confrontation with the United States over Taiwan, the island democracy China claims as its territory. The military activity — which, according…

Why People Are Flocking to a Symbol of Taiwan’s Authoritarian Past

Chin@Strategy

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ringed by barbed wire and high gray walls, and once the site of a secretive military detention center, the museum just south of Taipei makes for a surprising tourist hot spot. The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, housed on the campus of a former military school, is a chilling reminder of the excesses of Taiwan’s not-so-distant authoritarian past when its rulers imposed martial law for four decades. The moldering concrete buildings with fading paint were once the site of secret tribunals where political dissidents were tried and…

How China Could Choke Taiwan’s Economy With a Blockade

Chin@Strategy

For decades, Beijing has had its sights on Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own. It has built up the People’s Liberation Army with the goal of ultimately taking Taiwan, if efforts to unify peacefully fail. It has modernized its forces, developing the world’s largest navy, which now challenges American supremacy in the seas around Taiwan. While China likely still lacks the ability to quickly invade and seize Taiwan, it could try to impose a blockade to force the island into concessions or as a precursor to…

China Pushes Its Vision for Taiwan As U.S. Delegation Visits

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — As tensions in the Taiwan Strait reached their highest level in decades, China held the world rapt with a show of military might, deploying its largest-ever military exercises to intimidate Taiwan and its supporters. But the message that China has sought to convey involves far more than warships and fighter jets. Alongside its flashy display of raw power, China has been laying out its most forceful vision — political, economic, cultural — of a future unified with Taiwan. Under that vision, guided by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, not…