During a Chinese military exercise, precision attacks on important targets on Taiwan and in the surrounding waters were simulated.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
China has continued its military exercise around Taiwan, simulating an attack on the island it claims as its own territory. Precision attacks on important targets on Taiwan itself and in the surrounding waters were simulated, Chinese state media reported on Sunday.
The Taiwan Ministry of Defense reported several Chinese Air Force operations. By noon, 58 combat aircraft and nine warships had been sighted. The three-day maneuver began on Saturday, the day after Taiwan President Tasi Ing-wen returned from a trip to the United States.
Special attention is being paid to the Chinese People’s Army’s missile units, which are responsible for land-based missile systems, the Taiwan Defense Ministry said. It reiterated that its armed forces would respond appropriately to China’s military maneuvers and would not escalate conflicts or cause disputes.
Maneuvers amid massive tensions
In the past three years, China has increased its military pressure on the democratically governed and industrially well-developed Taiwan. It has regularly flown sorties around the island but has not entered its airspace. The People’s Republic has also never refrained from using force to take control of Taiwan.
The current maneuver comes amid tensions between China and Taiwan and its supporter, the United States. Tsai’s US trip, during which she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has incensed the government in Beijing. Tsai also received a delegation of US lawmakers in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, on Saturday.
The US Mission to Taiwan said Sunday the United States is closely monitoring China’s maneuvers around the island. We are confident that we have sufficient resources and capacities in the region to ensure peace and stability. Channels of communication between the US and China remained open, and the US had repeatedly called for restraint and not to change the status quo.
The status of the democratically governed Taiwan, which is only recognized as independent by a few, mostly small, countries, is one of the main points of conflict between the USA and China. Like many other countries, the USA does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan out of consideration for the People’s Republic of China; they severed them in favor of China in 1979. However, the USA supports the country with military equipment and is its most important supplier of armaments.
Taiwan considers itself an independent Republic of China and has been self-governing since 1949. At that time, Mao Zedong’s communists defeated the nationalist Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese civil war, who then withdrew to the island of Taiwan and ruled there in an authoritarian manner for decades.
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