He said: “In this part of the world, China is the one and only problem wrecking the status quo and threatening regional peace and stability”.
Marine survey and research ships are also among the more than 100 vessels, the security official told AFP.
It is not clear what the vessels are doing, but Chinese Navy and coastguard vessels have previously trained in these waters.
China has ramped up military pressure on Taiwan in recent years, deploying fighter jets and warships around the island on an almost daily basis and staging several large-scale drills.
Several thousand people, some waving US and Taiwan flags, marched in Taipei on Saturday in support of the Government’s plan to boost defence spending.
Under US pressure, President Lai Ching-te’s Government had proposed additional spending of nearly US$40 billion ($68b) on critical weapons, including US arms and domestically made drones.
But the plan was blocked by the opposition-controlled parliament, which passed US$25b in spending on US weapons only.
Taiwan’s Government has been on the offensive since Trump’s remarks on arms sales, insisting US policy had not changed and that arms sales were part of Washington’s security commitment to the island.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told a news conference that Beijing’s “position of resolute opposition to US arms sales to China’s Taiwan region is consistent, clear and firm”.
Trump earlier in the week referred to “the Taiwan problem” when asked if he would speak to Lai about arms sales to the island.
He said: “I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody … We’ll work on that, the Taiwan problem.”
Lai said that he would be “happy” to talk to Trump.
Such a conversation between the presidents of Taiwan and the US would break more than four decades of diplomatic protocol and risk angering China.
– AFP