China's defence ministry says activities east of Taiwan are lawful and dismisses Japan's jet-scramble data as a smear.
Defence ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang told a regular briefing on 29 October, in response to claims by Taiwan's defence authorities and coast guard of an "abnormal increase" in mainland coast guard, research and fishing vessels off Taiwan's east and south amounting to multi-front hybrid warfare, that the relevant mainland departments' normal activities in Chinese-administered waters east of Taiwan are entirely lawful, and that China would act to "crush all Taiwan independence separatist illusions". Reuters had reported that Taiwan National Security Council chief Joseph Wu said on 28 October that 53 Chinese ships, 34 of them warships including the carrier Liaoning, were spread from southern Japan to the Philippines, and that Japan's defence ministry tracked three Chinese warships and a coast guard vessel transiting the Osumi Strait into the Pacific on 27 October. Zhang also responded to Japanese data showing 442 Air Self-Defense Force scrambles against Chinese and Russian aircraft from April to September, 285 of them against Chinese aircraft, calling it Japan's habitual hyping of "surrounding security threats" that exposes its frequent surveillance and harassment of legitimate Chinese and Russian operations. He separately said the US should stop "stirring up trouble" after the littoral combat ship USS Charleston recently sailed near Sabina Shoal.
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