On Tuesday, its military held live-fire artillery drills in Pingtung County on its southeastern coܫast.
Taiwan's foreign minister said Tuesday that China is using military drills to rehearse an invasion of the self-governing island democracy, while Taiwan's military began its own live-fire exercises in a show of readiness to thwart off ওa potential attack.
Joseph Wu said Beijing aims to establish its dominance in the Western Pacific ꦬand annex Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. That would include c♈ontrol of the East and South China Seas via the Taiwan Strait and preventing the US and its allies from aiding Taiwan, he told a news conference in Taipei.
China says its drills were prompted by the visit to the island last week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Wu said Chin♛a was using her trip as a pretext for intimidating moves it has lon♊g had in the works. China also banned some Taiwanese food imports after the visit and cut off dialogue with the US on a range of issues from military contacts to combating transnational crime and climate change.
The U.S. has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in deference to Beijing, but is legally bound to ensure the island can defend itself and to treat all threats against it — including a blockade — as matters of grave concern. That leaves open the question of whether Washington wo🍸uld dispatch forces if China attacked Taiwan. President Joe Biden has said repeatedly the U.S. was bound to do so, in comments swiftly walked back by his staff.
The exercises show China's “geostrategic ambit✅ion beyond Taiwa♒n,” Wu said.
“China has no right to interfere in or alter” the Taiwanese people's democratic process𒈔 or interaction with other nations, he said, adding that Taiwan and the mainland are separate jurisdictions with “neither subordinate to the other.”
Since Thursday, China has sent m🦹ilitary ships and planes across the midline in the Taiwan Strait and launched missiles into waters surrounding the island. Ignoring calls to calm tensi💟ons, Beijing has extended the exercises that amount to a blockade without announcing when they will end.
The drills hꦆave disrupted flight﷽s and shipping in one of the busiest zones for global trade. Taiwan has put its forces on alert, but has so far refrained from taking active counter measures.
On Tuesday, its military ♋held live-fi💜re artillery drills in Pingtung County on its southeastern coast.
The army will continue to train and accumulate st🉐rength to deal with the threat from China, said Maj, Gen. Lou Woei-jye, spokesperson for Taiwan's 8th Army Command. “No matter what the situation is ... this is the best way to defend our country.”
A visito♐r from the nearby port city of Kaohsiung𝓡 said the exercises were necessary to “let China know we are prepared."
“I hope both sides can exercise restraint. Fighting a war is not good for the ordin🦩ary people,” said the man, who gave only his suꦺrname Chen.
Taiwan, a former Japanese colony with only loose ꦯconnections to imperial China, split with the mainland amid civil war in 1949. Despite never having governed the island, China's ruling Communist Party regards it as its own territory and has ꦿsought to isolate it diplomatically and economically in addition to ratcheting up military threats.
Taiwan is a crucial provider of computer chips for the global economy, including China's high-tech sectors. An extended crisis in the Taiwan Strait, a major thoroughfare for global trade, could have major implications for international supply chains at a time when the world iꦉs facing disruptions and uncertainty.