TAIPEI: Taiwan sent ships and fighter jets to monitor the second Chinese \u201cjoint combat readiness patrol\u201d in a week near the island, as Taipei steps up its guard over Beijing\u2019s activities.
\nChina has pressured Taiwan by increasing its military presence around the island, and Taipei is on high alert for further Chinese actions after President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan with US President Donald Trump in Beijing this month.
\nChina views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, and operates its warships and warplanes around the island on an \u200calmost daily \u200cbasis. Taiwan\u2019s government rejects Beijing\u2019s sovereignty claims.
\nLate on \u200cMonday, \u2060Taiwan\u2019s defense ministry \u2060said it had detected 21 Chinese aircraft, including J-16 fighters and drones, operating all around the island, which, along with warships, were carrying out a \u201cjoint combat readiness patrol.\u201d
\nChina\u2019s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nTaiwan\u2019s defense ministry published three pictures taken by its own forces \u2014 one from an F-16 jet \u2060of two Chinese fighters trailing a Y-20 aerial refueling \u200caircraft, one of the Chinese warship \u200cthe Yinchuan, and one of a Taiwanese navy sailor watching the same \u200cship through binoculars.
\nSpeaking to reporters in Taipei on Tuesday, \u200cPan Chun-kuang, from the ministry\u2019s intelligence department, said the Chinese \u201ccombat patrol\u201d had already ended.
\nBut Taiwan continues to track the movements of China\u2019s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, operating in the Western Pacific, and will release more \u200cdetails of Chinese activities as needed, he added.
\nChina carried out a similar \u201creadiness patrol\u201d last Tuesday, the day \u2060before Taiwan \u2060President Lai Ching-te marked his second year in office. China calls Lai a \u201cseparatist\u201d and has rebuffed multiple offers from him for talks.
\nOver the weekend, Taiwan said its coast guard had faced off with a Chinese coast guard ship near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, which are strategically located at the top end of the South China Sea.
\nOn Saturday, Taiwan\u2019s National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu took to social media to detail the 100 Chinese ships he said were currently in the first island chain, referring to an area running from Japan through Taiwan and into the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TAIPEI: Taiwan sent ships and fighter jets to monitor the second Chinese \u201cjoint combat readiness patrol\u201d in a week near the island, as Taipei steps up its guard over Beijing\u2019s activities. China has pressured Taiwan by increasing its military presence around the island, and Taipei is on high alert for further Chinese actions after President …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98299,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98286\/revisions\/98299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}