The Chinese-organized military drills around Taiwan entered their second day yesterday, with the Chinese military “carrying out simulated attacks on key targets on the island and in the surrounding waters.” The state channel CCTV reported that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese army) “continued its pressure around the island” as part of the exercises, which will last until Monday.
The PLA’s eastern conflict area ordered “dozens” of raids by “early warning, reconnaissance, attack, bombing and jamming aircraft,” the channel said. A total of 71 aircraft and nine military ships from China made incursions into areas around Taiwan during the drills.
PLA patrolmen “occupied attack positions” through “high-speed maneuvers.” Likewise, the Xuzhou frigate “carried out tactical operations” in waters east of Taiwan, the chain reported, which showed images of Chinese maritime and air forces in action.
In addition, the military portfolio explained on its Twitter social network account that 45 of the Chinese airplanes crossed the median line of the Strait of Formosa, which in practice is an unofficial border tacitly respected by Taipei and Beijing in recent decades.
Models such as SU-30, J-10 and J-11 fighters took part in the air raid, which took place in the southwestern and northern parts of Taiwan’s self-defined Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which is undefined and unregulated. by any international treaty and is not equivalent to its airspace.
The island’s air forces monitored the situation with naval and combat air patrols and ground-based missile systems, the ministry said.
Over the past two years, Chinese military aircraft have carried out numerous raids on the Taiwanese ADIZ, and they have intensified at a time when tensions between the two territories have escalated.
The well-known Chinese journalist Hu Xijin explained last night in the local newspaper Global Times that the maneuvers are “an explosion in the hearts and bowels of Taiwan separatists”, while accusing the United States of “increasing arms sales and military aid†to the self-governing island.
China announced the military exercises on Saturday in response to a meeting in California on Wednesday between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
A military spokesman defined the maneuvers as “a serious warning” against “provocation by separatist forces” and a “necessary action to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity” of China. For its part, Taiwan described the maneuvers as “an irrational act that endangers regional security and stability.”
From Washington, the White House called on Beijing for “moderation” and assured that it keeps its communication channels with China “open.”
In an interview conducted before the maneuvers and published on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the need “not to enter into a block-to-block logic.” Europe is not “following” the United States or China in Taiwan, he told the French daily Les Echos.
The situation is reminiscent of last August, when the visit to Taiwan of the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, enraged Beijing, which responded with military maneuvers around the island after a trip it described as a “sham.” and “deplorable treason.”
Beijing has considered Taiwan a rogue province since Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war to the communist army.
The island is one of the biggest sources of conflict between China and the United States, mainly because Washington is Taiwan’s main arms supplier and would be its biggest military ally in the event of a war with China.
