Taiwan News

China's military on Friday condemned the sailing of a U.S. and British warship through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, saying it ordered naval and air forces to monitor and warn the two ships.The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command said the U.S. destroyer USS Higgins and British frigate HMS Richmond were engaged in "trouble-making and provocation"."The actions of the United States and Britain send the wrong signals and undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait…

Taiwanese coast guard captain Juan Chung-ching's patrol boat moves across the Taiwan Strait, scanning for threats to what Taipei says is the newest target of China's grey-zone warfare: undersea cables vital to the democratic island's communications.Juan steered his 100-ton vessel, armed with water cannons and an autocannon, toward TP3, the undersea cable that made international headlines when a Chinese captain was found guilty of deliberately severing it this year.TP3 is one of…

Taiwan's defence spending next year will exceed 3% of gross domestic product to demonstrate to the world the government's determination to fulfil its shared responsibility for security, Premier Cho Jung-tai said on Thursday.The move comes as China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.But Taiwan also faces calls from Washington to spend more on its own defence, mirroring pressure from the United States on Europe.

China's government on Friday said Taiwan was deliberately politicising the damage of undersea communication cables as part of a smear campaign, expressing anger after the island jailed a Chinese ship captain for an incident earlier this year.A Taiwanese court on Thursday sentenced the captain of the Togo-flagged ship to three years in jail after finding him guilty of intentionally damaging undersea cables off the island in February, in an incident that alarmed Taiwan officials.In a statement, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said that damage to maritime cables were "common accidents", saying Taiw

In the shadow of the Taiwan Strait, a new chapter in asymmetric naval warfare is unfolding. Drawing lessons from Ukraine’s strategic use of maritime drones in the Black Sea, Taiwan is adapting similar technologies as a low-cost, high-impact defense against an increasingly assertive Chinese Navy.Off Taiwan’s eastern fishing port of Wushi, Thunder Tiger — a local defense technology company — has been testing the SeaShark 800, an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) capable of carrying 1,200 kg of explosives across distances up to 500 km.

A Taiwanese court sentenced the Chinese captain of a ship to three years in jail on Thursday after finding him guilty of intentionally damaging undersea cables off the island in February, in a case that alarmed Taiwan officials.Prosecutors said the man was captain of the Chinese-crewed Hong Tai 58, registered in Togo, which Taiwanese authorities detained after suspecting the ship had dropped anchor near an undersea cable off southwestern Taiwan, damaging it.The court in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan said the ship's Chinese captain, whom they identified only by his family name, Wang, wa

Taiwan accused China on Friday of raising tensions in the region with a "provocative" military patrol involving warplanes and warships near the island, an unusual public rebuke in what are typically routine accounts of Chinese military activity.Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby. Since President Lai Ching-te took office last year China has held three major rounds of war games.Taiwan's defence ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday…

Taiwan's defence minister dismissed on Friday China's complaints about a collision between a Taiwan navy ship and a Chinese trawler in the sensitive Taiwan Strait, vowing that Taipei would carry on military exercises undeterred.China's Taiwan Affairs Office condemned the actions of the Taiwanese landing ship as "wicked" following Thursday's collision off Taiwan's central city of Taichung. Taiwan, however, said it did not take place in "restricted" waters."The Taiwan Affairs Office always says things like this…

Two U.S. Navy ships sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait this week in the first such mission since President Donald Trump took office last month, drawing an angry reaction from China, which said the mission increased security risks.The U.S. Navy, occasionally accompanied by ships from allied countries, transits the strait about once a month. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, says the strategic waterway belongs to it.The U.S. Navy said the vessels were the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and Pathfinder-class survey ship, USNS Bowditch.

Taiwan's navy simulated on Thursday an effort to see off enemy ships as it wrapped up three days of New Year drills, sending two of its newest and most advanced warships to lead a flotilla into the Taiwan Strait.China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, sends its air force and navy into the skies and waters near the island on a daily basis in what the government in Taipei calls a sustained pressure campaign.Last year China also held two rounds of major war games around Taiwan.At the Zuoying naval base in the southern city of Kaohsiung on the shores of the Strait…

Taiwan's Presidential Office held its first "tabletop" exercise involving government agencies beyond the armed forces on Thursday, simulating a military escalation with China amid renewed threats from Beijing, officials said.Dozens of central and local government agencies as well as civil groups participated in the three-hour exercise, the sources said, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.China has in recent years stepped up military threats, including the large massing of naval forces this month and daily military activities close to democratically governed Taiwan, wh

Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.While the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy's first passage through the strait since 2002.China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it…

The U.S. military will not be involved in development of a port in the Philippines' remote northernmost islands near Taiwan, the local governor said, removing a potential source of friction with China over the U.S. presence in the region.The governor of the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, said in August she had sought U.S. funding for a new port there. The U.S. embassy had at the time confirmed its diplomats and U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) experts had…