Dozens of PRC aircraft and warships headed for Taiwan. China begins military exercises around it after a meeting between the president of the American Congress and the president of the island. The drills began on high alert after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with the leader of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy this week, angering Beijing.
China’s military has sent dozens of planes across the midline of the Taiwan Strait just hours after it announced a three-day drill around Taiwan in response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the states States and a meeting with the President of the Chamber of Deputies.
On Wednesday, according to The Guardian, Tsai Ing-wen met with President Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles, angering Beijing, which says Taiwan is a Chinese province it intends to reunite with.
On Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after President Tsai returned to Taipei, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it would conduct “alert patrols” and exercises in the Taiwan Strait and the north, south and east of Taiwan”.
China’s military command in the eastern theater described the maneuvers as “an earnest warning against collusion between Taiwanese breakaway forces and outside forces and a necessary step to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
As CNN points out, the exercise, dubbed Joint Sharp Sword, will include “alert patrols and drills in and around the Taiwan Strait and north, south and east of Taiwan, as well as at sea. and in the airspace as planned,” the senior colonel said. Shi Yi from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater of Operations.
The exercise will focus on “the nation’s ability to gain control of sea, air and information supported by our joint combat system,” the PLA said.
Hours later, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense said it spotted 42 PLA fighter jets and eight warships in Taiwan’s air defense (AD) identification zone, with 29 planes crossing the center line, the de facto border of the Taiwan Strait. In recent years, the PLA has sent planes and ships into the air defense zone almost daily and, after an exercise last August, has increased the frequency of crossing the median line.
The flyby of 29 planes is above average and similar to numbers recorded by observers in an exercise conducted in August after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it would respond calmly, rationally and with a serious attitude, without fomenting conflict or causing controversy, after China announced plans for the exercise.
“In recent years, the (Chinese Communist Party) has continued to send planes and ships to harass the region, threatening the regional situation,” the Taiwanese ministry said. “He used President Tsai’s visit to the United States as an excuse to conduct military exercises that seriously harm regional peace, stability and security.”
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper said in a comment on Saturday that the PRC government has “a strong ability to prevent any form of secession for Taiwan.”
“All countermeasures taken by the Chinese government are in line with China’s legitimate right to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the newspaper said in a commentary.
Tsai Ing-wen, who strongly rejects Beijing’s claim to sovereignty, has repeatedly offered to negotiate with China, but has been turned down because the PRC government views her as a separatist. She, for her part, insists that only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.
Tensions around Taiwan are unlikely to ease, given the arrival in Taipei of a delegation of US lawmakers led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCall.
Earlier, during Tsai Ing-wen’s 10-day tour of the Western Hemisphere, China threatened to retaliate if the Taiwanese president met US President McCarthy.
However, unlike August, when then-President Nancy Pelosi visited the island, China has yet to announce whether it will also hold missile drills around Taiwan. China then released a map alongside the exercise announcement showing which sea areas near Taiwan it would fire.
Taiwan and the United States have urged Beijing not to use President Tsai’s visit to the United States during layovers to visit allies in Central America as an excuse for hostile activity. Taiwanese security officials said they expected a less harsh reaction to the meeting with Kevin McCarthy, given that it was held in the United States, but nevertheless also said they could not not exclude the possibility of other Chinese exercises.
On Friday evening, maritime authorities in Fujian issued a travel ban notice to a small maritime area near Pingtan in the Taiwan Strait, where live-fire drills will take place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the report.
Earlier this week, the PLA deployed a carrier battle group led by the USS Shandong across the Bashi Channel in waters southeast of Taiwan. The Japanese Ministry of Defense also discovered PLA missile destroyers and surveillance vessels sailing between the northeast coast of Taiwan and Okinawa.
Chinese maritime authorities also announced an inspection patrol operation in the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese government has ordered Taiwanese vessels, including cargo ships and ferries, to refuse any attempt to board Chinese patrols, raising fears of a possible escalation.
China’s announcement comes hours after French President Emmanuel Macron left China after meetings with senior leaders, including President Xi Jinping, in which Macron urged Beijing to ‘reason with’ Russia on the conflict in Ukraine.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen, who also traveled to China this week to meet Xi Jinping, also said stability in the Taiwan Strait was of paramount importance.
Xi Jinping responded by saying that expecting China to compromise on Taiwan would be “wishful thinking”, according to China’s official announcement of the meeting.
