Tag: Taiwan Strait

China’s Dispute With Taiwan Is Playing Out Near This Tiny Island

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A small island controlled by Taiwan a few miles off China’s coast lived for decades in constant readiness for war. At one point in 1958, troops there hunkered in bunkers as Communist forces rained hundreds of thousands of shells on them. These days, the island, Kinmen, has become a hub of Taiwan’s commerce with China and its abandoned, weatherworn fortifications are tourist sites. Eight ferries a day take Taiwanese businesspeople and visitors from Kinmen to mainland China. But the sea around Kinmen has again turned tense after two Chinese men…

Delegation Led by Mike Gallagher Says U.S. Support for Taiwan Is Firm

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Visiting U.S. lawmakers sought to assure Taiwan on Thursday that the United States would stand by it in the face of pressure from China, though a bill that includes support for the island has stalled in Congress, and divisions over aid for Ukraine have fanned wider questions about Washington’s commitment to its partners. “Today we’ve come as Democrats and Republicans to show bipartisan support for this partnership,” Representative Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican who is leading the congressional delegation to Taiwan, told President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, the capital. Journalists…

Blasting Bullhorns and Water Cannons, Chinese Ships Wall Off the Sea

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The Chinese military base on Mischief Reef, off the Philippine island of Palawan, loomed in front of our boat, obvious even in the predawn dark. Radar domes, used for military surveillance, floated like nimbus clouds. Lights pointed to a runway made for fighter jets, backed by warehouses perfect for cruise missile launchers. More than 900 miles from the Chinese mainland, in an area of the South China Sea that an international tribunal has unequivocally determined does not belong to China, cellphones pinged with a message: “Welcome to China.” The world’s…

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’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…

Chinese Drones: The Latest Irritant Buzzing Taiwan’s Defenses

Chin@Strategy

TAIPEI, Taiwan — At first the Taiwanese soldiers ignored the drones flying from China. Then, as the flights increased, they fired warning shots. Finally, the soldiers shot one into the sea. In the past month nearly 30 unarmed drones have buzzed two islands belonging to Taiwan near China’s southern coast. The drones were mostly civilian, or unidentified, but were clearly targeting the garrison of Taiwanese soldiers stationed on the rocky outcrops. The drones are adding to tensions between the two sides which have escalated in the past month to new…

China Threatens Reaction After U.S. Announces Arms Sales to Taiwan

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — China threatened over the weekend to take countermeasures after the Biden administration approved the sale of more than $1.1 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said the sale of military equipment to Taiwan, designed to repel a seaborne invasion from China, would “severely jeopardize China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” In a series of messages posted to Twitter on Saturday, Liu Pengyu, the spokesman, also called on the United States to “immediately revoke” the decision…

U.S. Warships Sail Taiwan Strait, Defying Chinese Pressure

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — The U.S. Navy said that two of its warships were sailing through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the first such passage by American ships since China began large-scale military exercises in response to a visit to Taiwan by Speaker Nancy Pelosi early this month. The guided-missile cruisers Antietam and Chancellorsville were conducting what the Navy’s Seventh Fleet called “a routine Taiwan Strait transit.” American officials said this month that the Navy would continue to operate around Taiwan, despite China’s claims to control the waterway. China has warned…

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…