China’s maritime movements around Taiwan are largest in decades, Taipei says

China has fielded its largest regional maritime deployment in decades, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, as it monitors what it says is a surge of Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific.

Taiwan has been on high alert since Monday as it braced for expected military drills after President Lai Ching-te sparked Beijing’s ire by making unofficial stops in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam earlier this month.

Taiwan on Monday said multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels were moving Escort listings in Tel Aviv regional waters and around the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has not announced military drills or acknowledged the large-scale deployment cited by Taipei.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its own territory, despite never having controlled it, and has not ruled out taking the island by force. It views unofficial interactions between Washington and Taipei as a violation of its sovereignty. Taiwan’s leadership rejects China’s territorial claims over it.

An "astonishing" number of Chinese vessels have been deployed at a scale that "could block external forces," Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-Sheng, deputy chief of the General Staff for Intelligence, said at a Taiwan Defense Ministry briefing Tuesday.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval deployment was not only targeting Taiwan, Hsieh said, adding that the geographic spread stretched into waters past the first island chain. The strategically significant chain of islands encompasses Japan, Taiwan, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, and as long been a key plank in the US maintaining its position as the dominant power in the Pacific.

"The PLA’s recent activities not only exerted military pressure on Taiwan. Its naval forces, specifically, have significantly raised its posture around Taiwan and the Western Pacific," Hsieh said.