China ended a day of military drills around Taiwan on Monday in which it deployed fighter jets and warships in what Beijing said was a “stern warning” to “separatist” forces on the self-ruled island.
Beijing has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control and Monday’s drills represented its fourth round of large-scale war games in just over two years.
The United States said China’s actions were “unwarranted” and risk “escalation” as it called on Beijing to act with restraint.
Beijing announced at around 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), 13 hours after the drills started, that they had been “successfully completed”.
The drills, dubbed Joint Sword-2024B, had “fully tested the integrated joint operation capabilities of its troops”, military spokesperson Captain Li Xi said in a statement.
“Always on high alert, troops of the theater command keep strengthening combat readiness with arduous training, and will foil the ‘Taiwan Independence separatist attempts’,” Li said.
President Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, has been more outspoken than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen in defending Taiwan’s sovereignty, angering Beijing, which calls him a “separatist”.
Lai vowed on Monday to “protect democratic Taiwan and safeguard national security”, while the defence ministry said it had dispatched “appropriate forces” in response to the drills.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said “Taiwan independence and peace in the Taiwan Strait are irreconcilable”.
Taiwan detected 125 Chinese aircraft, including fighter jets and drones, around the island between 5:02 am (2102 GMT) and 4:30 pm, a defence ministry official said, describing it as a record for a single day. Seventeen warships were also spotted.
Outlying islands administered by Taipei had been put on “heightened alert”, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
Beijing said its exercises served as a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”.
The drills took place in “areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan Island”, Li said earlier.
Their aim was to focus “on subjects of sea-air combat-readiness patrol, blockade on key ports and areas”, Li said.
They also practised an “assault on maritime and ground targets”.
The previous large-scale drills held in May, three days after Lai’s inauguration, were called “Joint Sword-2024A” and lasted two days.
– China coast guard ‘inspections’ –
China’s coast guard was also sent to conduct “inspections”, with a diagram released by the coast guard showing four fleets encircling Taiwan and moving in an anti-clockwise direction around the island.
The coast guard of the eastern province of Fujian — the closest area on the mainland to Taiwan — also said it conducted “comprehensive law enforcement patrols” in waters near the Taipei-controlled Matsu islands.
Taiwan said four “formations” of China coast guard ships had patrolled the island and briefly entered its restricted waters, but not its prohibited waters.
China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan in recent years, sending warplanes and other military aircraft while its ships maintain a near-constant presence around the island’s waters.
“In the face of enemy threats, all officers and soldiers of the country are in full readiness,” Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Monday.
Lai convened a high-level security meeting over the drills, said Joseph Wu, secretary-general of the National Security Council, who described the exercises as “inconsistent with international law”.
He vowed in his National Day speech on Thursday to “resist annexation” and insisted that Beijing and Taipei were “not subordinate to each other”.
Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party has long defended the sovereignty and democracy of Taiwan, which has its own government, military and currency.
Beijing said on Monday the drills were “a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding state sovereignty and national unity”.
– ‘Feel a bit numb’ –
Lieutenant Colonel Fu Zhengnan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, said in a video shared by state media that the drills could “switch from training to combat at any time”.
“If Taiwan separatists provoke once, the PLA’s operation around the island will make their first move,” Fu said, referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Taiwan’s coast guard said on Monday it had detained a Chinese man on one of its outlying islands after a possible “grey zone intrusion”, referring to tactics that fall short of a direct act of war.
In Taipei, people appeared to be largely unperturbed.
“I won’t panic too much because they quite often have drills,” 34-year-old engineer Benjamin Hsiao told AFP.
“It’s not the first time in recent years anyway, so I feel a bit numb.”
AFP journalists saw about five military jeeps mounted with machine guns on Monday afternoon patrolling around Taipei Songshan Airport, which is also a military air base.
The dispute between China and Taiwan dates back to a civil war in which the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek were defeated by Mao Zedong’s communist fighters and fled to the island in 1949.
China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since then.
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