By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
(Reuters) -China has flexed its muscles this month by sending an unusually large number of naval and coast guard vessels through a swathe of East Asian waters, according to security documents and officials, in moves that have unnerved regional capitals.
Since early May, China deployed fleets larger than usual, including navy, coast guard and other ships near Taiwan, the southern Japanese islands and the East and South China Seas, according to three regional security officials and documents of regional military activities reviewed by Reuters.
On May 21 and May 27, for instance, China deployed nearly 60 and more than 70 ships, respectively, around three-quarters of them naval, the documents show. These included guided-missile frigates, destroyers and coast guard boats.
Beijing also dispatched two aircraft carrier groups, with the Shandong now in the busy waterway of the South China Sea and the Liaoning off the southeastern coast of Taiwan, the documents show.
“They are exerting pressure on the whole of the first island chain amid global geopolitical uncertainties,” said one security official.
The reference is to waters stretching from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing the seas around China’s coast.
“They are trying to reinforce their dominance,” the source said, adding that drills this month by the Liaoning, the oldest of China’s three aircraft carriers, simulated attacks on foreign ships and aircraft around the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea.
There was an “obvious” stepped-up Chinese naval presence this month, added a second source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as did the first, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence assessment.
“China clearly wants to show these are its home waters and it can operate when and where it wants,” the source said.
China’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
LIVE FIRE DRILLS
Over the past two weeks China declared several live-fire drill areas off its coast, including last week one directly facing southwestern Taiwan.
Last Wednesday, Chinese state television showed images of amphibious drills in the southern province of Fujian, across the strait from Taiwan, but did not give an exact location.
This week, Japan has been tracking the Liaoning and its accompanying warships through the southern Japanese islands and into the Western Pacific.
China seems to be trying to improve its capacity to operate far from the Chinese coast, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
“The Japanese government intends to keep a close eye on relevant movement and do its utmost in carrying out monitoring and surveillance activities,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the ships’ activities were in line with international law and practice and Japan should “look at them objectively and rationally”.
China has kept up its stand-off with the Philippines in the South China Sea, where its foreign ministry on Friday urged the Philippines to immediately stop “infringement and provocation”.
The Philippine Navy’s spokesperson on South China Sea issues, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, told Reuters that China’s “illegal presence” in the maritime zones of Southeast Asian states “has been disturbing the peace in the region and is contrary to pronouncements of its ‘peaceful rise’.”
The spike in Chinese military activity has also come as Taiwan President Lai Ching-te marked the anniversary this month of a year in office.
China has staged three major rounds of war games since the inauguration of Lai, whom it calls a “separatist”.
On Wednesday, Taiwan’s defence ministry said the Liaoning was off the island’s southeast coast, adding that Taiwan would raise its combat preparedness in line with the threat level.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing, Karen Lema in Manila and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo)
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