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By Ben Blanchard / Reuters
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.
Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei.
While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest of Penghu, home to major Taiwanese navy and air bases and close to the Taiwan side of the Strait, the ministry said late on Monday.
The military “closely monitored the formation and responded appropriately using naval and air forces,” it said, without elaborating.
The ministry showed color pictures of both ships taken from the air, but did not give an exact location.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, it said China’s regular military activities around Taiwan are “entirely justified and reasonable” and any tensions are the fault of the government in Taipei.
In its daily update on Chinese activities over the past 24 hours, the MND yesterday morning said nine Chinese warships were operating around Taiwan, with 22 military aircraft detected.
While it showed a map of where the Chinese aircraft were, mostly in the Strait and to the north and southwest of Taiwan, it did not provide any other information about the location of the warships.
