Taiwan: Taiwan’s Defence Ministry has stated that China has launched drills in the western Pacific involving its Shandong aircraft carrier and dozens of warplanes, which are analysed as Beijing’s “largest” manoeuvres in the region. The report came as Beijing stepped up military and political pressure on the democratically governed island in a bid to assert its sovereignty claims.
In a statement, the Taiwanese Defence Ministry noted that it tracked some 35 Chinese warplanes, including J-10 fighters, around the island early on Wednesday. About 28 of them flew into the southwestern corner of the island’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ.
“Some of them passed through the Bashi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, to the western Pacific to conduct joint sea and air training with the Shandong aircraft carrier,” the Ministry stated. The Ministry further released an undated photo showing the Shandong, which entered the western Pacific for training, being monitored by a Taiwanese Keelung-class warship.
China’s Eastern Theatre Command, which organises drills around Taiwan, said that an “aviation unit” had carried out training “recently”, with a range of “thousands of kilometres.”
Recently, China said its troops were “on constant high alert” after two ships belonging to the United States and Canada sailed through the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy reported that the ships were the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Ralph Johnson and HMCS Ottawa, and that the transit “demonstrates the commitment of the United States and our allies and partners to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
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