Taiwan reported a Chinese aircraft carrier group sailing to the island’s south on Sunday.
In a statement, Taiwan’s defense ministry said that a Chinese navy group led by the Liaoning carrier had entered waters near the Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea and the Pacific and separates Taiwan from the Philippines.
It said the carrier group was expected to enter the Western Pacific.
The ministry added without elaborating that Taiwan’s armed forces are monitoring developments closely and “exercising an appropriate vigilance and response.”
Security sources in Taiwan had said before Lai’s address that his speech could prompt new Chinese war games, last held by the country in May in what Beijing said was “punishment” for Lai’s inauguration speech that month.
Earlier on Sunday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command, which has responsibility for an area that includes Taiwan, put out a propaganda video on its social media accounts entitled “fully prepared and biding one’s time before battle”.
It showed fighter jets and warships operating together, mobile missile launchers being moving into place and amphibious assault vehicles, with a small map of Taiwan, included in one of the Chinese characters that make up the video’s title.
China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.
China’s military put out a video saying it was “prepared for battle” amid concerns in Taipei about the possibility of a new round of Chinese war games.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its territory, detests its president Lai Ching-te as a “separatist”, and the Chinese military routinely operates around the island.
