Taiwan plans to build a new fleet of anti-submarine corvettes to hunt down Chinese submarines, a move that threatens to escalate already high and rising tensions around the self-governing island Beijing considers a renegade province.

Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense, Chiu Kuo-cheng, announced this week that the island’s armed forces are prioritizing the anti-submarine ships to protect against a possible Chinese blockade, for which Beijing signaled the capacity and intent during provocative military operations in August, Taipei Times reported.