China’s Amphibious Assault Fleet Flexes Muscles in Contested Waters Around Taiwan

A Chinese navy flotilla, which included warships specialized in projecting military power onto shore, was spotted in the waters off the southeast and southwest coastlines of Taiwan.

Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Defense Ministry for comment.

Why It Matters

The People’s Republic of China, though it has never governed Taiwan, continues to claim the self-ruled island as part of its territory. Beijing has said it “reserves all options” against Taiwan, a U.S. security partner, and refused to renounce the use of force.

China has reportedly been preparing for a potential amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Last year, Admiral Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region, warned that the Chinese military had executed the largest invasion rehearsal around Taiwan in his career.

What To Know

Five Chinese naval ships—including two Type 052D destroyers, one Type 075 amphibious assault ship, one Type 071 amphibious transport dock and one Type 903 replenishment ship—were 134 nautical miles southeast of Taiwan on Tuesday, a satellite image showed.

Newsweek could not independently verify the authenticity of the satellite photograph, which also showed three Taiwanese warships monitoring the Chinese naval ships.

The Taiwanese military announced the following day that the Chinese military had designated a live-fire drill zone 40 nautical miles off Taiwan’s southwest coast—outside the island’s territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from its shore—without advance warning.

A total of seven Chinese warships were inside the drill zone, according to a map provided by the Taiwanese military. The CNS Siming Shan, a Type 071 amphibious warship with a hull number of 986, was among them, as seen in a video published by the Taiwanese military.

The suspected laser-armed Siming Shan sailed from the East China Sea to the Philippine Sea near Japan’s southwestern islands with six other Chinese warships in mid-February.

During an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington had existing commitments that it had made to prevent China from taking Taiwan and to react to it, which “the Chinese are aware of.”

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires that the U.S. provide Taiwan with defensive weapons while resisting any attempt to resolve differences across the Taiwan Strait by other than peaceful means.

What People Are Saying

The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also called on the international community to continue to pay attention to the security of the Taiwan Strait and the region, and to jointly condemn China’s repeated and unilateral actions that undermine regional peace and stability.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Wednesday: “We have a long-standing position on Taiwan that we’re not going to abandon, and that is: We are against any forced, compelled, coercive change in the status of Taiwan. That’s been our position since the late 1970s, and that continues to be our position, and that’s not going to change.”

What Happens Next

It remains to be seen whether China’s amphibious warship-led flotilla will sail into the Taiwan Strait, which lies between China and Taiwan, to circumnavigate the island.