Forty-one Chinese military planes and ships near Taiwan, just before its president's stopovers on American territory

President Lai Ching-te has to make a stopover in American territory, which irritates Beijing. Taiwanese authorities announced on Friday, November 29, that they had detected 41 Chinese military planes and ships near the island.

The Ministry of Defense detailed that there were 33 planes and eight Chinese warships, all spotted in the last twenty-four hours in Taiwan's airspace and waters. The army also spotted a balloon – the fourth since Sunday – about 172 kilometers west of the island.

In recent years, Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of China, has intensified its military activity around the island to pressure Taipei into accepting its sovereignty claims. It deploys fighter planes, drones and warships around Taiwan almost daily.

American stopover by the president during a trip

Lai Ching-te, who openly defends Taiwan's sovereignty, leaves on Saturday to visit the Marshall Islands, the Tuvalu archipelago and Palau, the only Pacific nations among Taiwan's twelve remaining allies.

During this tour, Lai Ching-te, in power since May, will spend two nights in Hawaii and one night in Guam, American island territories, to meet with “old friends” and « membres de think tanks »a presidential source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), on condition of anonymity.

Taiwanese officials have already stopped on American soil during trips to the Pacific or Latin America, arousing the anger of Chinese leaders. Lai Ching-te's predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, had already passed through Hawaii and Guam during her first official visit to her Pacific allies in 2017.

« L’[armée] China's sacred mission is to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity and will resolutely crush all secessionist attempts for Taiwan's independence.”warned Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Beijing Defense Ministry, at a press conference on Thursday.

As of Thursday evening, the Taiwanese military had deployed planes, ships and coastal missile systems after detecting 19 Chinese aircraft near the island. “It is not excluded that there will be a large-scale military exercise in response to Lai's visit [Ching-te] » in Hawaii, estimated Su Tzu-yun, a military expert from the Taiwanese Institute for National Defense and Security Research, interviewed by AFP.