China raised this Friday the level of its retaliation for Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan with actions that include the suspension of cooperation mechanisms with Washington, sanctions on the president of the US Legislative. and the crossing of ships and planes of the middle line of the Strait of Formosa.
Two days after the controversial trip of the veteran politician, Beijing announced eight measures, including the suspension of cooperation in matters such as the judicial, climate change, repatriation of illegal immigrants, criminal legal assistance, fight against transnational crimes and talks on combating climate change.
It also canceled the telephone calls between the leaders of the military commands and the work meetings between the defense portfolios of both powers, as well as those of the Military Maritime Security Consultation Mechanism.
These cancellations mean that there is no longer a mechanism of trust between the armed forces of both superpowers at a time when the levels of tension in the Taiwan Strait are at a level not seen since the 1990s.
The Asian giant made this decision public just an hour after imposing sanctions on Pelosi and her direct relatives for “ignoring China’s concern and firm opposition” to her trip and for “undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the country. asian country.
The measures include a ban on entry to China for Pelosi and her associates, without further details at the moment.
Likewise, China also summoned European diplomatic representatives, the European Union, Japan and Canada in the last hours due to the declarations made by the G7 foreign ministers in relation to Taiwan.
The ministers had asked Beijing on Thursday to refrain from using Pelosi’s recent visit as “a pretext to carry out aggressive military action in the Taiwan Strait.”
midline crossing
For its part, Taiwan denounced today that up to 68 planes and thirteen Chinese Army ships continued to operate in the Taiwan Strait and that some of them crossed the middle line of the Formosa Strait during the second day of the military maneuvers initiated by Beijing this Thursday. .
If at first it was Beijing that condemned Washington for crossing its red line with Pelosi’s trip, today the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, described the Chinese military maneuvers that allegedly crossed the dividing line as an “irresponsible act”.
This imaginary line in the strait functions as an unofficial but tacitly respected border for China and Taiwan for the past decades.
A “qualitative leap”
The Chinese exercises take place in six areas around the island, one of them about 20 kilometers from the coast of Kaohsiung, the main city in southern Taiwan, and despite the fact that in recent years China has carried out other drills in the Strait of Taiwan, this week’s are different because “they cover a larger area, involve more military elements and are expected to be highly effective,” Chinese defense experts quoted by local media reported.
These large-scale war games, which will last until Sunday and which Taiwan has described as “a blockade”, “represent a qualitative leap in the previous dynamics and, probably, irreversible. It is something that will go beyond these maneuvers and a trend that is here to stay,” Xulio Ríos, director of the Chinese Policy Observatory, told Efe.
Ríos predicted that, as of this crisis, China “will surely be more incisive in military pressure on Taiwan” and “will try to ensure greater control over the island and its surroundings through de facto means”, while He explained that the maneuvers represent “the prelude to an essential change in China’s military approach to Taiwan.”
Doubts about the trajectory of the missiles
This Thursday, the Chinese exercises included long-range artillery target practice off the east coast of Taiwan, with “multiple types of conventional missiles”, a mission in which the projectiles “hit the target with precision”, according to the Army. of the Asian giant.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry assured shortly after that it had “instant knowledge” of the missile launch thanks to “reconnaissance and surveillance” tasks during the drills, which were described as “a success” by Beijing.
However, Japanese military spokesmen reported last night not only the alleged fall of five Chinese ballistic missiles in waters belonging to the special economic zone (EEZ) of the Japanese country, but also that five of the Chinese missiles had flown over the island of Taiwan itself. .
The island Army has not confirmed or denied this point, limiting itself to saying that its surveillance systems “detected the trajectory” of the missiles, which “represented no danger” to the island.
China, which described Pelosi’s visit as a “farce” and “deplorable betrayal”, claims sovereignty over the island and considers Taiwan a rebellious province since the Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949, after losing the civil war against the Chinese. communists