The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense claimed that three Chinese ships, including the aircraft carrier shandongcrossed the Taiwan Strait on Saturday May 27. “A flotilla of the PLA [Armée populaire de libération] of three ships, led by the aircraft carrier shandongcrossed the Taiwan Strait around noon today”the ministry said in a statement.
The ships headed “west of the center line in a northerly direction”, he said, in reference to this invisible border drawn unilaterally by the United States during the Cold War, which Beijing refuses to recognize. Taiwan’s defense ministry added that eight Chinese fighter jets had crossed the center line of the strait in the past 24 hours, an operation that has become regular since August.
The Taiwanese army has “responded appropriately”
Taiwanese armed forces “monitored the situation and loaded planes [de patrouille aérienne civile]naval vessels and land-based missile systems to respond to these activities”, said the island’s ministry. Before confirming that the army had since “responded appropriately”. On Saturday, 33 warplanes and 10 ships were “detected at 6 a.m.”, according to the Department of Defense. The day before, 11 ships were near Taiwanese waters.
China’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment, and the country’s armed forces made no mention of the trip on their official social media.
According to Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China institute at the University of London, the passage of the aircraft carrier shandong in the eastern Taiwan Strait “very unusual”. “But the Chinese have been trying to demonstrate their military power around Taiwan in the last six months or in the last year”, he explained. Thus, the appearance of shandong in the strait is part of this ” general context “according to Mr. Tsang.
The last time Taiwan officials reported the Chinese aircraft carrier’s presence in the Taiwan Strait was in March 2022. It was deployed there before a phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden. .
China considers Taiwan as a province that it has not yet managed to reunite with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Relations between Beijing and Taipei, at their worst since the arrival in power of Xi Jinping more than ten years ago, have further deteriorated in recent years and China has stepped up military incursions around the island.