Taipei, December 7 — Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence (MND) said on Sunday it detected two sorties by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and seven vessels from the PLA Navy operating near its territory. The MND also reported detecting a balloon from the People’s Republic of China during the same period and said its armed forces monitored and responded to the activity. The observations were recorded up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8).
The ministry noted an uptick in activity over the weekend: on Saturday it reported 29 PLA aircraft sorties and six PLA Navy ships operating around Taiwan, an increase compared with previous days.
Separately, a former U.S. defence official from the Biden administration voiced support for remarks by Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggesting Japan could help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. Ely Ratner, who served as assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs through 2024, told the Taipei Times that Takaichi’s comments reflected Japan’s official position and criticized Beijing’s response as disproportionate.
Takaichi, during a parliamentary session on November 7, said a Chinese attack on Taiwan might be regarded as a threat to Japan’s survival and could trigger Japanese military action—a stance described as the most direct by a Japanese leader in decades. Her comments prompted strong measures from China, which announced steps intended to hurt aspects of the Japanese economy, including travel and study advisories and a suspension of the resumption of Japanese seafood imports.
A social-media post by Xue Jian, the Chinese consul general in Osaka, that called for harsh measures against Takaichi was deleted after publication, according to reports.
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