Taiwan has been monitoring increasing Chinese military activity amid Beijing’s exercises in the Pacific

TAIPEI:

Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Thursday it was closely monitoring Chinese military moves following an increase in warplanes taking part in exercises with the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Pacific.

The Chinese military exercises coincide with a NATO summit in Washington, where a draft communique says China has become a key player in Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and Beijing continues to pose systemic European and security challenges.

China’s Shandong aircraft carrier passed near the Philippines on its way to Pacific exercises, Taiwan’s defense minister said on Wednesday.

In its daily update on Chinese military activity over the past 24 hours and released Thursday morning, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had spotted 66 Chinese military aircraft operating around the island.

Of those, 39 passed south and southeast of Taiwan, the ministry said, after earlier saying it had detected 36 aircraft heading to the Western Pacific to conduct exercises with the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong.

Taiwan’s defense ministry released two photos, a grainy black-and-white one of a Chinese J-16 fighter jet and a color one of a nuclear-capable H-6 bomber, which it said were taken recently, but did not say exactly where or when.

“The military has a detailed understanding of the activities in the seas and waters around the Taiwan Strait, including Chinese Communist aircraft and ships,” ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang said in a statement, adding that those aircraft and ships were included which are conducting exercises with Shandong.

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Taiwanese forces had tracked the two Chinese warplanes that were photographed, he said.

China’s defense ministry has not responded to requests for comment on Shandong’s activities.

Taiwan, which China considers its territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military activity over the past four years as Beijing tries to pressure the democratically-ruled island, which rejects China’s claims of sovereignty.

A spokesman for the Chinese mission to the European Union said the draft declaration of the NATO summit is full of “belligerent rhetoric” and content related to China has provocations, “lies, incitement and slander”.

Ahead of the summit, Taiwan’s foreign ministry told Reuters it “welcomes NATO’s continued increase in attention to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region in recent years and the active strengthening of exchanges and interactions with countries in the Indo-Pacific region. – Pacific”.

Taiwan is not the only hot spot security issue concerning China – and Russia – in the region.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces said in a statement that they spotted two Russian frigates on Wednesday passing between two of its islands at the western end of the Okinawa chain near Taiwan heading southwest into the Pacific Ocean.

China and the Philippines have been locked in a standoff in the disputed South China Sea, and their meetings have grown more tense as Beijing advances its claims to herds in waters Manila says are within its exclusive economic zone.

US allies Australia and Japan have also stepped up their military activities.

The Philippine Air Force arrived in northern Australia on Wednesday for its first overseas deployment in six decades for practice combat alongside US and Australian fighter jets.

A Japanese destroyer also made a rare entry into China’s territorial waters near Taiwan earlier this month without notifying China and raised “serious concerns” from Beijing, Japanese media reported late Wednesday.