China launches major maneuvers around Taiwan
In reaction to the visit of Nancy Pelosi, Beijing launches from Thursday vast military exercises in several areas around the island of Taiwan
Nancy Pelosi is the highest elected US official to visit Taipei in 25 years.
AFP
China’s military will conduct its largest military exercises in decades around Taiwan on Thursday, a heavy-handed response to US Deputy Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
If her trip to this territory claimed by China lasted less than 24 hours, Nancy Pelosi sparked the fury of Beijing by being the highest elected American official to visit Taipei in 25 years. Assuring to come “in peace” to the region, Nancy Pelosi however hammered that the United States would not abandon the island, ruled by a democratic regime and which lives under the constant threat of an invasion by the Chinese army.
“Those who offend China will have to be punished, ineluctably”, retorted to him, from a distance, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi. In response, Beijing is launching from Thursday noon (06:00, Swiss time) vast military exercises in several areas around the island of Taiwan, at the level of busy trade routes.
They include “training activities, including live ammunition firing drills,” according to state media. As a security measure, the China Maritime Security Administration has “prohibited” ships from entering the affected areas. These drills will take place in a variety of areas encircling Taiwan – sometimes as little as 20 kilometers off the Taiwanese coast – and will last until noon Sunday.
“Self-defense”
Authorities on the island have denounced the program, saying it threatens East Asian security. “Some of China’s maneuver areas encroach on (…) Taiwan’s territorial waters,” said Sun Li-fang, spokesman for the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense. “This is an irrational act aimed at challenging the international order,” he said.
“There is no justification for using a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activities in the Taiwan Strait”, estimated for their part the heads of diplomacy of the rich countries of the G7 (United States, Japan, France, Germany , Italy, Canada, UK) in a joint statement. “Travelling abroad is normal and part of the routine for parliamentarians in our countries,” they added.
This choice of China to launch military maneuvers is “not responsible”, and the situation could degenerate, warned Wednesday the main diplomatic adviser to Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan. “When an army conducts a series of activities that include the possibility of missile tests, live-fire exercises (…), the possibility of an incident occurring is real”, he affirmed on the NPR public radio. “And we believe that what China is doing here is not responsible,” the White House national security adviser continued.
Beijing says for its part that these exercises – as well as others, more limited, started in recent days – are “a necessary and legitimate measure” after Nancy Pelosi’s visit. “It is the United States that is the provocateurs, and China that is the victim. China is in self-defense,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.
Invasion unlikely
If the hypothesis of an invasion of Taiwan, populated by 23 million inhabitants, remains unlikely, it has increased since the election in 2016 of the current president Tsai Ing-wen. Coming from an independence party, Tsai Ing-wen refuses, unlike the previous government, to recognize that the island and the continent are part of “one China”.
Visits by foreign officials and parliamentarians have also increased in recent years, provoking the ire of Beijing. In response, President Xi Jinping’s China, which wants to be intractable on questions of sovereignty, seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and exerts increasing military pressure on the island.
Result: the Taiwan Strait is now becoming the scene of dangerous tensions between the United States, the Taiwanese authorities and the Chinese authorities, forced to project an image of intransigence as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress approaches. Organized in the fall, this congress will see, except cataclysm, Xi Jinping re-elected at the head of the organization for a third term.
AFP
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