In the past few days, over a dozen Chinese naval ships have been reported around Taiwan, with one vessel spotted in the northeast reportedly towing a sonar buoy. The increased activity comes after U.S. warships transited the Taiwan Strait.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00More and more Chinese military ships are operating around Taiwan.
00:07In the past few days, over a dozen naval ships have been reported around the country.
00:12One ship spotted in the northeast was reportedly towing a sonar buoy,
00:17most likely gathering intelligence.
00:23The surge in activity comes as two U.S. warships sail through the Taiwan Strait.
00:28It's the first transit mission of its kind under the new Trump administration.
00:32China denounced the operation and doubled down on its claims over Taiwan,
00:37saying that these transits increase security risks.
00:58Over the past year, Beijing conducted some of its largest military exercises in history around Taiwan,
01:09deploying its largest naval fleet in three decades
01:12and carrying out three large-scale military drills in the region.
01:16With the growing Chinese activity, Taiwan's military is on alert,
01:21committed to protecting the country's maritime borders.
01:28I'm not a troublemaker. I don't need to explain this further.
01:33The Ministry of National Defense publishes a lot of information on the Taiwan Strait every day,
01:37sending a large number of warships to cross the Taiwan Strait,
01:41and even entering the airspace around us to carry out such targeted and threatening military exercises.
01:49This is the main role of the Communist army.
01:52The heightened military pressure around Taiwan has sparked concern from observers
01:57about the effects it could have on the rest of the world.
02:00Taiwan sits in a strategic spot in the Indo-Pacific
02:03and at the center of some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
02:07In recent weeks, suspicious cargo ships have been seen sailing around Taiwan
02:12and instead of delivering goods, have reportedly been looking for submarine cables,
02:17vital for Taiwan's internet connection with the rest of the globe.
02:20Some of these cables have already been cut.
02:23The entire world is now thinking about cables,
02:25not just because of course what's going around Taiwan,
02:28but what's going on in the Baltic Sea and other places.
02:33And so I think that there will be an effort generally to begin to try to harden the cable system, right?
02:39But there are a lot of cables and you can't just replace them all instantly.
02:43It's very expensive and takes a long time.
02:46With so much maritime activity around Taiwan,
02:49the military here is trying to adapt to this concerning reality,
02:53not only defending the country's sovereignty,
02:56but helping to protect key areas vital to the international community.
03:01Ryan Wu and Jaime O'Connor for Taiwan Plus.