Taiwan unveiled its first amphibious warship yesterday, a day after the Chinese military breached the island’s airspace with 25 warplanes amid escalating tensions in the region.
The new 10,000-tonne ship, named Yu Shan, can be used to land troops and bolster supply lines to vulnerable islets. Taiwan is responding to rising military pressure from Beijing, which sees the island as a Chinese territory and vows to take it back, by force if necessary.
President Tsai of Taiwan hailed Yu Shan as a “milestone” in the island’s ambitious programme to upgrade its armed forces in response to the threat. “I believe that this ship will certainly strengthen the navy’s ability to fulfil its mission and further solidify our defences,” Tsai said.
Built by the state-backed CSBC Corporation Taiwan, the £120 million ship will enter service next year, armed with cannon, anti-aircraft missiles and Phalanx close-in weapons systems.
Cheng Wen-lung, chairman of CSBC, said the ship would be used for transport to Taiwanese islands in the disputed South China Sea and those which lie close to the Chinese coast, long considered easy targets for China in the event of war.
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“During wartime it will have an amphibious warfare mission, bringing in reinforcements and fighting to retake offshore islands,” he said.
Chris Dodd, a former senator, and two former deputy secretaries of state headed to Taiwan yesterday at President Biden’s request, in what a White House official called a “personal signal” of his commitment to the island.
Taiwan has also begun to upgrade a runway on Pratas Island in the South China Sea, a territory under Taipei’s control. The runway will be used to “rapidly transport military assets to support the nation’s armed forces”, according to the Central News Agency, Taiwan’s official wire service.
Beijing ratcheted up pressure on Taiwan after Tsai was elected president in 2016 and refused to acknowledge the “one China” policy. The island broke away from the mainland following a bloody civil war in the 1940s, and it has since established a democratically-elected government.
Since last year, the Chinese air force has made frequent incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. Yesterday it made the largest incursion yet with 25 warplanes, including 18 fighter jets and four bombers, according to the island’s ministry of defence.
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In response, Taiwan sent its air patrol force to shadow the Chinese planes, issued radio warnings and monitored the movement of the aircraft.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China’s Global Times, a party-run newspaper, said the incursion was a response to Washington’s recent decision to loosen restrictions on US officials meeting their Taiwanese counterparts.
While it has no formal ties with the island, Washington has a security pact with Taiwan, and it has boosted its support in the face of rising pressure from Beijing.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Washington’s new guideline, by openly encouraging contact between the US government and the island, “severely violated the ‘one China’ policy”.
“It has severely violated the solemn political promises the US has made to China on the issue of Taiwan,” Zhao said. “It sends a seriously wrong signal to the forces of Taiwan independence and separatism.”
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Zhao said there was no room for negotiation over Taiwan, because the issue was about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“We ask the US side to clearly understand the situation . . . not to play with the fire on the issue of Taiwan but cease all official contact with Taiwan in any form,” Zhao said.
