February 26, 2025. After the People’s Republic of China sent 32 aircraft near Taiwan to engage in previously unannounced drills in conjunction with Chinese warships, the Republic of China launched “sea, air and land forces to ‘monitor, alert and respond appropriately.’ ”
The ROC observed that the People’s Liberation Army had “blatantly violated international norms by unilaterally designating a drill zone 40 [nautical miles] off the coast of Kaohsiung and Pingtung, claiming to conduct live-fire exercises, without prior warning. This move not only caused a high degree of danger to the safety of international flights and vessels at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability.”
Well, “This is not a question on foreign affairs,” said PRC foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian when asked about the new incursion.
One of the Chinese Communist Party’s standard silly propaganda lines is that since Taiwan belongs to the mainland and is not the location of another country, the PRC’s dealings with Taiwan or the other islands of the ROC are an internal matter, not a foreign-policy matter; thus, not something one should be asking the Chinese foreign ministry about.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said China’s actions in the region, including live-fire drills off Australia and Vietnam, “prove that China is the only and biggest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.” Australia’s government complained last week that China had issued a warning of potential “live fire” naval drills in international waters off the country’s east coast with little prior notice, forcing a disruption to some commercial flights.
The latest surge of military intimidation of the Republic of China comes as the U.S. “has quietly unfrozen about $870 million in security assistance programs for Taiwan.”
February 25, 2025. A day before the mainland’s live-fire drill near Taiwan, the ROC’s coast guard or Coast Guard Administration detained a “Chinese-crewed vessel suspected of cutting undersea cable.”
The Hong Tai 168 “had been loitering within roughly 925 meters of the cable since 7 p.m. local time on Feb. 22. A coast guard vessel was dispatched to the ship at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, demanding that the vessel leave the area, Taiwan’s state-owned media said.
“Coast guard officials received confirmation that the Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 undersea cable had been cut at 3 a.m. Tuesday, and they began efforts to detain the ship’s Chinese crew. All eight crewmembers were Chinese nationals, according to the coast guard.”
The ROC’s Ministry of Digital Affairs said that communication traffic had been diverted to other cables.
Despite the Chinese crew, the ship had been carrying the flag of the Togolese Republic.
This isn’t the first time that Chinese or Chinese-crewed ships have damaged telecom cables. Two such cables were severed in November 2024 in Swedish territorial waters of the Baltic Sea; the likeliest suspect is the Yi Peng 3. In early January 2025, the Chinese freighter Shunxin-39, reportedly registered in both Cameroon and Tanzania, cut an undersea cable near Keelung Harbor.
February 17, 2025. The U.S. State Department deleted a statement from its website asserting that “we do not support Taiwan independence.” The change “was welcomed by Taipei but triggered one of the strongest rebukes from Beijing since Donald Trump returned to the White House.” The U.S. is guilty here of a “serious regression,” China complained.
February 6, 2025. The United States government can correct a 46-year-old error if it accepts a resolution proposed by Representative Tom Tiffany and a couple dozen cosponsors. “Taiwan [the Republic of China] has never been under the control of the People’s Republic of China—not even for a single day,” Tiffany said. “It is a free, democratic, and independent nation, and it is past time for U.S. policy to reflect this undeniable objective truth.”
Although the groundwork for severing diplomatic ties with the Republic of China and establishing diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China had been laid by the Nixon administration, it was the Carter administration which did the deed in 1979. Since then, the U.S. government has continued to help the ROC to defend itself while also continuing to be evasive about the fact of the ROC’s political independence.
Also see:
CSIS: “Invisible and Vital: Undersea Cables and Transatlantic Security”
