The six balloons were spotted in the 24 hours to 6am on Friday, the ministry said, in its daily tally of Chinese military activity around the island.
Along with the balloons, nine Chinese military aircraft, six warships and two official ships were detected over the same period near Taiwan.
Chinese balloons are regularly spotted over waters near Taiwan, but Friday’s figure is one of the highest recorded, according to an AFP tally of the military data.
While Taiwan calls itself a sovereign nation, China claims the island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.
In recent years, China has ramped up the deployment of fighter jets and warships around the island and sought to erase Taiwan from the international stage by poaching its diplomatic allies and blocking it from global forums.
Taiwan is a potential flashpoint for a war between China and the United States, which is the island’s most important backer and biggest arms supplier.
While the United States is legally bound to provide arms to Taiwan, Washington has long maintained “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to deploying its military to defend the island from a Chinese attack.
