China said on Wednesday it takes "necessary measures" to defend the country's sovereignty and will not tolerate "separatist" activities, as Taiwan reported another rise in Chinese warplanes around the island and called on Beijing to halt provocations.

Beijing's military has yet to comment on the military activity and has not confirmed it is carrying out exercises.

A senior Taiwanese official said they believed the surge in activity was meant to send a political message to the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

A security diplomat in the region briefed on the matter told Reuters the scale and size of the ongoing Chinese operations, including the manpower being dispatched, was "unheard of" in recent years.

"We have not seen anything like this in at least the past few years," they said citing their country's assessment while declining to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, had been expected to launch drills to express its anger at President Lai Ching-te's tour of the Pacific that ended on Friday and included stopovers in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam.

"We will absolutely not let things go unchecked. We take necessary measures to resolutely defend the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office said when asked about the increased military activities.

China's government was "highly vigilant to the trend of separatist Taiwan forces colluding with external forces", she said at a regular news briefing in Beijing.

Taiwan's defence ministry said on Wednesday it had detected 53 military aircraft operating around the island over the past 24 hours, as well as 11 navy vessels and eight "official" ships, which refers to vessels from ostensibly civilian agencies such as the coast guard.

"PROVOCATIVE ACTS"

Lai and his government reject Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement that China's military actions were a "blatant disruption" of regional stability and Beijing should immediately stop all "provocative acts".

It is customary for Taiwan presidents to go overseas and "Taiwan's normal international exchanges with other countries are not an excuse for China's provocations", she added.

Taiwan's military had gone on alert on Monday after saying China had reserved airspace and deployed naval and coast guard vessels.

On Tuesday, Taipei's defence ministry said China was deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games.

However, a U.S. military official said China's naval deployments in the East China Sea and South China Sea were elevated but consistent with other large exercises in the past.

A senior Taiwan security official, offering the government's assessment of China's activities, told a briefing in Taipei it took China's military nearly 70 days to plan and deploy the current sea operations and that they were meant for the incoming Trump government and U.S. allies, rather than specifically Lai's visit to the Pacific.

"They are trying to draw a red line and exert authority for the new master of the White House," the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was "extremely rare" for China to deploy sea operations of such scale at this time of the year when sea conditions are usually rough, the official said.

Taiwan's government believes China's decision not to announce the drills could be because Beijing is trying to minimise the impact on two major events with Taiwanese businessmen and politicians, one taking place this week and another next week, the official added.

"It's a carrot and stick approach," the official said, pointing to Beijing's annual charm offensive programmes towards Taiwan, including a visit to Taipei by one of Shanghai's deputy mayors next week.

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Taiwan's Defense Ministry says a large Chinese military force has been detected near island

Taiwanese Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-sheng speaks during a press conference at the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei, Taiwan Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024.

China's secretive military appears to be up to something around Taiwan, but it's unclear whether it's a formal military drill.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it has detected a dozen Chinese naval ships and 47 military planes in the past 24 hours but no live-fire activity as in previous military exercises. The deployment covers a wider area this time, with additional ships going beyond Taiwan into other parts of the Pacific, defense officials said at a news conference.

Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-sheng said China’s navy is creating two walls — one at Taiwan's perimeter and another outside the first island chain, which extends south from Japan and through Taiwan to the Philippines. “The message they are sending is very simple: The Taiwan Strait is ours,” he said, referring to the waters between Taiwan and China.

The military has been bracing for possible drills by China in response to a recent overseas trip by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te that included Hawaii and Guam, an American territory.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and opposes the self-governing island having official interactions with other countries, and in particular, the United States. Lai spoke with U.S. congressional leaders by phone while in Guam last week. While the U.S., like most of the world, doesn’t formally recognize Taiwan as a country, it is the largest supplier of arms to the island of 23 million people for its defense.

Without any announcement from China on military drills, Taiwan officials are calling the ongoing activity a training exercise. Hsieh noted that training can become drills, and drills can become war.

“It’s in the status of regular training,” he said. “But under the status of normalized training, it’s able to mobilize military forces on such a large scale and carry out exercises in such a large area.”

China, which views Lai as a separatist, held major military exercises around Taiwan following his inauguration in May and his National Day speech in October. It also held a major drill after Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in 2022.

Taiwan's military set up an emergency response center on Monday in response to the increased Chinese naval activity and the announcement of flight restrictions in seven zones off China's east coast. The restrictions are in place until Wednesday.

“We have noticed that there are no live-fire drill activities in the seven exercise areas as planned in the past," said Hsieh, who heads the office of the deputy chief of general staff for intelligence.

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