Taiwan's top security official published a map showing 53 Chinese navy and government vessels operating from southern Japan to the Philippines, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning east of the Philippines.
China has more than 50 navy and other official vessels operating in a wide stretch of sea from southern Japan down to Taiwan and off the Philippines, a senior Taiwan official said, calling the threat level obvious.
Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan's National Security Council, published a map on Wednesday showing the positions of 53 ships, 34 of them navy warships, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning. The carrier and its battle group were positioned east of the Philippines, with other formations off Taiwan's east and southeast and three off the southern coast of Japan, according to the map.
Wu said Taiwan was staying vigilant about the vessels' activities, adding that the simultaneous threat to Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines was obvious. Taiwan's Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Thursday that Taipei was not happy to see any attempt to project deterrence that could undermine peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
China's defence ministry said earlier this month that the Liaoning was engaged in a routine training exercise not directed at any specific country. The defence ministries of China, the Philippines and Japan did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on Wu's map, and Taipei has not published evidence that the vessels took hostile action.
The deployment lands as China's ties with both Japan and the Philippines have worsened in recent months, with Beijing upset by Japanese support for Taiwan and locked in a bitter stand-off with Manila in the South China Sea. Taiwan has stepped up publishing details and maps of Chinese warship and coast guard movements, and Wu published a similar map in May, so the next test will be whether the formations disperse, linger, or draw a formal response from Tokyo or Manila.