China challenging US defence line, says Taiwan

TAIPEI: Taiwan Premier Yu Shyi-kun accused arch-foe China of sending surveillance ships into Taiwan and Japanese waters to prepare for a possible confrontation with the United States, newspapers said on Monday.

The comments by Yu, who was in New York over the weekend, come at a time of simmering tensions between China and Taiwan, with the Taiwan Strait seen by some security analysts as the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia.

“Communist Chinese forces are coming to the Pacific Ocean for a confrontation with the United States. This causes a threat to security in the Asia Pacific,” the China Times quoted Yu as saying in New York on Saturday. “For the sake of world peace, for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific, and for the sake of global military security, the Americans must stand behind Taiwan,” Yu was quoted as telling a group of about 500 Taiwan people.

The United States acknowledges Beijing’s ‘one China’ policy, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, but Washington is the island’s biggest arms supplier and has treaty obligations to defend Taipei against a Chinese attack.

Yu said Chinese ships had made numerous intrusions into Taiwan waters, and sailed close to Japan seven times in July and 14 times last year, aiming to break the US defence line in the west Pacific Ocean. It was not immediately clear if the ships were military, as they were described by Yu as “ocean surveillance” vessels, which are normally equipped with machines to chart under-water terrain and gather information on other sea vessels. “The United States is definitely the country with the most power and determination in the world, while China is definitely the source of chaos threatening the world,” Yu said. reuters

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