It’s the second time this month Taiwan has reported Chinese balloons flying near the island.
Two Chinese weather balloons flew across the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Dec. 17, Taiwan’s defense ministry said, as the regime in Beijing ratchets up pressure on the self-ruled island ahead of next month’s election.
The balloons were detected at 9:03 a.m. and 2:43 p.m. local time, respectively, after crossing the strait’s median line, the defense ministry said in a
statement on social media. They continued to travel toward the east, before disappearing at 9:36 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. local time, respectively, it added.
The potential for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to use high-altitude weather balloons to surveil other countries came into focus in February, when the United States
shot down a suspected Chinese high-altitude spy balloon that had traversed the U.S. continent.
Taiwan’s defense ministry’s spokesman, Sun Li-fang, said on Dec. 18 that an initial analysis found the balloons were for meteorological purposes.
It’s the second time Taiwan has reported Chinese balloons flying near the island this month. The previous incident
occurred on Dec. 7, southwest of Keelung, a port city on Taiwan’s northern coast. It was initially assessed to likely have been a weather balloon, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told legislators at the time.
Taiwan Election
Taiwan is on high alert as it prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13. Taipei has repeatedly said the Chinese regime is
trying to interfere in the elections, whether by military means or by co-opting Taiwanese politicians, to ensure an outcome favorable to Beijing.
The CCP claims Taiwan as its own territory to be taken by force if necessary, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has
vowed to achieve the “reunification” of Taiwan, even as the CCP has never ruled the island.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it also detected six Chinese aircraft and two vessels operating around the island on Dec. 18.
The CCP’s military sends warplanes and warships near the island almost daily, seeking to
wear down Taipei’s defenses. In 2022, Beijing flew a total of 1,737 military aircraft into international airspace near Taiwan, representing a 79 percent increase from the 972 incursions a year earlier, according to the Pentagon’s
annual report on China’s military, citing data from Taiwan’s defense ministry.
Meanwhile, researchers have identified online campaigns to manipulate views about Taiwan’s politics before the democratically governed island’s election. According to a recent
report by social media research company Graphika, a flood of fake accounts on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube have been spreading Chinese-language videos and memes about Taiwanese politics since May 2022. Graphika didn’t link the campaign to any specific actor.
However, the influence operation appears to promote Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang Party— which favors close ties with Beijing—and criticize candidates of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has built a close relationship with Washington, Graphika said.
Vice President Lai Ching-te and running mate Hsiao Bi-khim from the DPP are leading in the polls. However, the CCP views them as separatists.
Last week, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns warned Beijing not to interfere in Taipei’s election.
“As we look ahead to January 13, to the Taiwan elections, our strong expectation and hope is that those elections be free of intimidation, or coercion, or interference from all sides,” Mr. Burns told the audience during a Brookings Institution event in Washington.
“The United States is not involved and will not be involved in these elections.”
Taiwan has long been a flash point between Beijing and Washington. While the United States, like most countries, has no formal ties with Taiwan, it maintains robust relations with Taipei. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Arms sales are a frequent source of tension between Washington and Beijing.
President Joe Biden has said on several occasions that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Each time, however, the White House staff
scrambled to walk back the president’s comments, asserting that there has been no change in U.S. policy—known as “strategic ambiguity”—toward the island. U.S. administrations have been deliberately vague on whether they would defend Taiwan if the Chinese regime attacked it.
Mr. Burns added, “China wishes to become the strongest power in the Indo-Pacific.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
