Taipei, December 4 (ANI) — Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence (MND) said it recorded eight sorties by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and five People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels operating around its territory up to 6 a.m. (UTC+8) on Thursday. The MND said two of the eight sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s southwestern Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). It added that ROC Armed Forces monitored the activity and responded, posting the update on X.
The MND also reported similar activity earlier in the week: on Wednesday it detected 10 PLA aircraft, six PLAN vessels and two official ships operating around Taiwan, noting four of those sorties crossed the median line into Taiwan’s northern ADIZ. On Tuesday Taiwan recorded nine PLA sorties, eight naval vessels and two official ships, with one sortie entering the eastern ADIZ.
Separately, former U.S. defense official Ely Ratner, who served as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs from 2021 until this year, expressed support for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after her remarks suggesting Japan might help defend Taiwan. Ratner called Beijing’s reaction “inappropriate,” the Taipei Times reported. On November 7, Takaichi said during a parliamentary meeting that a Chinese assault on Taiwan could be “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” potentially prompting military action — a stance described as the most explicit by a Japanese leader in decades on possible involvement in a Taiwan crisis.
Takaichi’s comments drew anger from China, which announced measures including travel and study warnings and suspended the resumption of Japanese seafood imports. Xue Jian, China’s consul general in Osaka, posted a now-deleted remark saying Takaichi should be “decapitated.” (ANI)
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