Taipei, March 20 (CNA) Nearly one thousand mainland Chinese fishing boats have reportedly converged since Sunday on the Pratas Islands, a Republic of China-controlled outpost in the South China Sea, military sources said on Monday.
According to the sources, the mainland Chinese fishing boats were discovered moving toward the Pratas from all directions, forming what amounts to a blockade around the isolated coral atolls located some 240 nautical miles southwest of the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung.
A few other mainland fishing boats were also found to have moved into waters near Peikan, on ROC-controlled Matsu Island, which is situated outside the mouth of the Min River off the coast of the mainland Chinese province of Fujian, the sources added.
Although still unaware of the motive behind the movement of the mainland fishing boats, the military said it is watching the situation very closely.
Meanwhile, the sources said, movement has been detected in both mainland China's land and air forces since Sunday, the day after Taiwan's presidential election.
All military movements of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are under close surveillance by the ROC armed forces, said a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense.
The spokesman, however, disagreed with a report carried in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on Monday which claimed that over one hundred PLA air force jets have flown from the southern province of Guangdong to the neighboring province of Fujian, just across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. (By Deborah Kuo)
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