New Delhi (NVI): Taiwan is bracing for large-scale exercises by the Chinese military near China’s Hainan Province, possibly to capture the Dongsha Islands, which are currently controlled by Taiwan, according to media reports.
Taiwan’s top military official Maj. Gen. Lin Wen-huang, who heads an operations and planning office at the Ministry of National Defence (MND), has said his ministry is monitoring movements of “hostile forces” through intelligence gathering and surveillance, according to Central News Agency (CNA) of Taiwan.
His statement came after Japan’s Kyodo News reported that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is planning to hold a large-scale beach landing exercise near Hainan Province in August, with a scenario of capturing the Dongsha Islands (Pratas Islands), currently controlled by Taiwan.
The Kyodo report, which did not cite its sources, said the Dongsha Islands are significant to Beijing as these are located at a strategic point, because Chinese warships have to sail by them when going to the Pacific from Hainan Province, according to CNA.
Maj. Gen. Lin said the MND has contingency plans in place for the South China Sea and that work to strengthen combat readiness and defence preparedness on Taiping Island and the Dongsha Islands will not stop.
Taiwan, along with Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, claim ownership of the South China Sea region, either in part or wholly. At present, Taiwan controls Taiping, the biggest island feature in the South China Sea, and the Dongsha Islands, with coast guard personnel deployed on them.
Lin said that although those deployed there are not military, they possess the same skills and capabilities as marines.
In a legislative session on April 30, National Security Bureau Director-General Chiu Kuo-cheng revealed that there are about 200 men and women guarding Taiping Island, equipped with light and heavy weaponry, the CNA said, adding he did not mention the Dongsha Islands.
Meanwhile, Qi Yue-yi, a Taiwanese military expert in PLA issues, told CNA that China could have been preparing to target the whole of the South China Sea with the reported drill, but instead selected the area near its own Hainan Province so as not to alarm other claimants in the region.
