Taiwan: 30 Chinese aircraft sorties in 24 hours ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting – Taipei speaks of “silent intimidation”

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense recorded 30 sorties of Chinese military aircraft around the island in the 24 hours to 06:00 on Friday, November 13, Taipei time. In 23 of the 30 sorties the aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the island’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The same report records eight ships of the Chinese Navy (PLAN) and three official vessels. Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the movements and deployed combat air patrol aircraft, warships and coastal missile systems.

The increase is sharp. In the previous 24 hours, to 06:00 on Thursday, November 12, the ministry had counted only seven sorties, seven warships and two official vessels, with three aircraft entering the southwestern and eastern ADIZ. The new escalation comes a few days before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, where US President Donald Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A “silent exercise”

Separately, a senior Taiwanese security official, who was not named, told Reuters that unannounced Chinese drills in the Western Pacific earlier this month included simulated strikes on military targets and on cities, among them in Taiwan. According to the official, they were larger in scale than the exercises Beijing has officially announced in the past against Taiwan. Forces of the Eastern, Northern and Southern Theater Commands took part in a coordinated way, which in his assessment points to preparation for a possible blockade of Taiwan and broader military action in the Western Pacific. “It is a silent exercise and in practice a silent intimidation,” he said, likening the manoeuvres to a robber threatening a bank teller without setting off the alarm.

Taipei had announced from early November the presence of more than 100 Chinese warships and coast guard vessels in the Western Pacific. Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, said the ships had decreased to about 70, but Chinese air and naval forces continue to patrol east of the Philippines, together with the Liaoning carrier strike group. Defense Minister Wellington Koo said on November 10 that the Liaoning group and other Chinese naval formations are conducting “area denial” exercises. China’s Defence Ministry declined to comment, while Beijing maintains that its carrier movements are planned and not directed at any specific country. See also the G7 foreign ministers’ statement on China’s activity east of Taiwan.