Taiwan monitoring Chinese military leadership changes after top general put under investigation

Zhang has long been seen as Xi's closest military ally, and is one of the few senior Chinese officers with combat experience, having taken part in the 1979 border conflict with Vietnam.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, sends warplanes and warships into the skies and waters around the island on an almost daily basis, in what Taipei views as a harassment campaign to get the government to accept Beijing's sovereignty claims.

Koo said what the ministry was looking at is not any "single leadership reshuffle that would be enough to draw conclusions".

Taiwan will use a range of joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance methods, as well as intelligence-sharing, to "grasp" China's possible intentions, he added. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and held its latest round of war games around the island late last month.