China on Saturday deployed warships and flew fighter jets to encircle Taiwan, putting on an aggressive show of military might in response to Taiwanese President’s meeting with the US House speaker this week.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Saturday deployed warships and flew fighter jets to encircle the self-ruled island of Taiwan, putting on an aggressive show of military might in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s US stopover and meeting with House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, this week.
At least eight Chinese warships and 42 fighter jets were detected around the island on Saturday, the Taiwanese defence ministry said, adding that 29 jets crossed into Taiwan’s southwestern air defence identification zone (ADIZ), the highest number in a single day this year, according to data collected by AFP.
The Chinese PLA’s eastern theatre command (ETC) launched “combat alert patrols” under the “Joint Sword” exercises in the Taiwan Strait, which divides the Chinese mainland from the island, “encircling” it from the north, south and east.
The PLA deployment around Taiwan includes long-range rocket, artillery, destroyers, frigates, missile boats, fighters, bombers, electronic warfare aircraft, aerial tankers and – conventional missiles.
The three-day drill, between April 8 and 10, is expected to be the largest PLA military exercise since August, 2022, when Chinese armed forces had similarly surrounded the island of less than 24 million people, launching missiles and exploding ordnance in response to then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei.
“The patrol and exercises take place in the maritime areas and airspace of the Taiwan Strait, off the northern and southern coasts of the island, and to the island’s east,” Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the ETC said in a statement, quoted by state media.
Calling the exercise a “stern warning to ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces and their collusion with external forces”, Shi said it is a “necessary move to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The exercise began on Saturday morning, a day after Tsai returned to Taiwan, following her visit to the Central American countries of Belize and Guatemala and high-profile stopover in the US where she met and was hosted by top US diplomats and politicians.
China claims Taiwan as a breakaway region and resents official interaction between the island and a third country, terming it as an affront and interference in internal affairs.
“The patrols and drills will encircle the island of Taiwan from all four directions, effectively blockading and isolating it, with no foreign interference forces capable of entering or armed forces from the island of Taiwan capable of leaving,” Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the state-run tabloid Global Times.
China’s Maritime Safety Administration of eastern China’s Fujian province, according to the tabloid, issued a navigation warning notice on Friday that a live-fire shooting exercise will be held on Monday in an area off the shores of Pingtan, only about 130 km from Taiwan.
“Another navigation warning notice by the administration issued on Friday says live-fire shooting exercises will also be held on Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, April 15, April 17 and April 20 in an area off the shores of Fuzhou, about 90 km north of Pingtan,’’ the report said.
The PLA navy had already deployed the Shandong Carrier Strike Group (CSG) off Taiwan’s east coast earlier this week. It transited the Bashi channel on Wednesday in its first training voyage in the Western Pacific.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council called for China to “exercise self-restraint.”
The Communist Party of China continues to “…intimidate Taiwan militarily to undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as well as in the region,” the Council said, adding that
he government firmly defends national sovereignty and democratic freedom,
“Taiwan will not back down or succumb, and we will not provoke or act rashly,” it added.
Last August, China, in only its third white paper on Taiwan since 1993 and the first after President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, said it will not “renounce” the use of military force to bring the self-governed island under its control as its armed forces concluded the largest ever exercises around the island.
