Chinese and Taiwanese warships were spotted in a standoff in the contested waters near Taiwan on Tuesday as China continued its “extremely rare” large-scale exercises at sea.
Newsweek‘s map illustrates the locations of warships in two colors as seen in photographs captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites. The five blue dots are the Taiwanese naval vessels, while the five red dots are the Chinese.
Both defense ministries of China and Taiwan did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email.
Newsweek/Esri/Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem
The standoff occurred in the waters southeast and southwest of Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China has viewed as part of its territory despite never having governed it. The Chinese military staged war games from Monday to Wednesday off the country’s eastern coast.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that, citing a senior Taiwanese security official, it was “extremely rare” for China to conduct operations at sea of such scale, which took it almost 70 days to plan and deploy, at this time of the year when sea conditions are usually rough.
It was also reported on Monday that China sent about 90 naval and coast guard ships near Taiwan, Japan’s southern islands, as well as the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
The Chinese operations came after the Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te, who is viewed by China as a “separatist,” toured the country’s allies in the South Pacific Ocean, which included stopovers in Hawaii and Guam, the Pacific Ocean territory of the United States.
While China has yet to officially announce its military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday that the Taiwanese separatists and the “external forces” are undermining peace and stability across the strait.
The Taiwanese official further stated that the Chinese military drills were meant for the incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and his government, as well as America’s allies.
China is “trying to draw a red line and exert authority for the new master of the White House,” the official said, as per Reuters. Newsweek has emailed the Trump transition team for comment.
In response to this claim, Mao reiterated in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the “Taiwan question” is the first red line that must not be crossed in the China-U.S. relations. Beijing advocates its one China principle, which asserts that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory “since ancient times.”
For the U.S, which views Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region, follows its one China policy that recognizes Beijing as the sole legal government of China but only acknowledges, without endorsing, the Chinese sovereign claim over the island.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on Wednesday, China has deployed 53 military aircraft and 11 naval vessels, as well as eight government ships around the island, of which 23 military aircraft crossed the median line of the strait.
