Taiwan Responds Swiftly as China Tests Boundaries in the Taiwan Strait

China conducted its first large-scale military exercise in the Taiwan Strait after the election of President Lai Ching-te. As some Chinese military aircraft continued to breach the middle line of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan deployed its forces in response.

On the 18th, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense issued a press release stating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s SU-30 fighters, Y-8 anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, and other military aircraft made 18 sorties around Taiwan from 7:50 p.m. for two hours (local time). The military aircraft conducted joint combat readiness training with warships nearby, and 11 crossed the Taiwan Strait’s middle line.

This is the first time Chinese military aircraft have breached the middle line of the Taiwan Strait since the Taiwan presidential election on the 13th, where Lai Ching-te, who has an anti-China stance from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, was elected. The middle line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial maritime barrier between the two sides (China and Taiwan), was declared after the Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and Taiwan was signed in December 1954. Still, China does not recognize the line’s existence. The Taiwan Ministry of Defense immediately dispatched troops to Taiwanese waters, emphasizing that it would “continue to strengthen self-defense forces against enemy threats and respond to regional threats.”

China has been exerting military pressure by violating the middle line of the Taiwan Strait day after day before the presidential election. It was to warn that if an anti-China candidate wins, the relationship between the two sides will exacerbate, and tension in the Taiwan Strait will escalate. Nevertheless, as KMT candidate Jaw Shaw-kong fell, China’s provocation is expected to intensify. After Lai Ching-te, a member of the DPP, took office in May 2016, China severed official relations with Taiwan. Moreover, China has been creating a security crisis by continuing military exercises with an invasion of Taiwan in mind since the visit of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to Taiwan in August 2022.