The US is closely watching the drills China is conducting around Taiwan, and is confident that it has enough resources and capabilities to ensure peace and stability in the region, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday, while the EU called for restraint.
In Washington, a US Department of State spokesperson said that the US has “consistently urged restraint and no change to the status quo,” adding that it has ample resources to fulfill its security commitments in Asia.
The remarks were issued as Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills around Taiwan entered their second day yesterday.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command on Saturday announced that it would be conducting its “Joint Sword” exercises in the Taiwan Strait, as well as in the sea and air to the north, south and east of Taiwan from Saturday to today.
The drills are a response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday during a stopover in California at the tail end of her 10-day trip to visit Taiwan’s allies in Central America.
Among the Chinese military aircraft detected were an undisclosed number of Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jets, Shenyang J-11 and J-16D fighter jets, and KJ-500 airborne early warning and control planes, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a statement.
As of 4pm yesterday, a total of 70 warplanes and 11 warships were detected around Taiwan, with 35 planes either crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entering into the southwestern part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the ministry said.
The nation’s armed forces were monitoring the situation, it said, adding that they would remain on high alert while making every effort to defend the country’s sovereignty and national security.
The armed forces are also keeping a close eye on the PLA Rocket Force using the joint intelligence and surveillance system, in case the PLA conducts live-fire rocket and missile drills in nearby waters, the ministry said.
“The first day of the exercise focused on testing the task force capabilities in seizing control of the sea, air and information under the support of the joint combat system, as the forces simultaneously pushed forward to encircle the island, creating a suppressive situation in which the island is surrounded from all directions,” state-run China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.
CCTV yesterday said that the drills had “simulated joint precision strikes against key targets on Taiwan island and surrounding waters,” and that forces “continued to maintain the situation of closely encircling the island.”
China’s air force had deployed dozens of aircraft to “fly into the target airspace,” and ground forces had carried out drills for “multi-target precision strikes,” CCTV said.
The drills have so far been conducted in international waters or China’s territorial waters, not in Taiwan’s territorial waters.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong is on what is expected to be long-range training exercises about 200 nautical miles (370.4km) east of Taiwan.
Exercises today are expected to include live-fire drills off China’s Fujian Province, about 80km south of Taiwan’s Matsu Islands and 190km from Taipei.
“These operations serve as a stern warning against the collusion between separatist forces seeking Taiwan independence and external forces and against their provocative activities,” PLA spokesman Shi Yin (施毅) said.
China’s Fujian Maritime Safety Administration also announced that it on Saturday held live-fire exercises in China’s territorial waters near its Fujian Province’s Luoyuan Bay, which is about 200km northwest of Taiwan, and would be doing so again tomorrow, and on Wednesday and Saturday, and Monday and Wednesday next week from 8am to 12pm.
US Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican who led a congressional delegation to Taiwan for three days last week, told Fox News on Friday that the US might send troops to Taiwan if Beijing attacks.
“If communist China invaded Taiwan, it would certainly be on the table, and something that would be discussed by [the US] Congress and with the American people,” he said.
“Conflict is always a last resort,” he said, adding that he and fellow lawmakers traveled to Taiwan to “provide deterrence to China.”
China’s saber-rattling “galvanizes the United States’ support for Taiwan,” he added.
Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association secretary-general Wang Chih-sheng (王智盛) yesterday said that Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait are “a lot of thunder, but little rain.”
“The exercises are not so much a sanction against Taiwan as they are a form of internal propaganda. The main purpose is to appease domestic nationalist sentiment in China,” he said.
China was unable to stop Tsai from visiting the US or meeting McCarthy, so all it could do to appease angry nationalists was to hold such drills, he said.
“Part of the live-fire exercises were concentrated near China’s coastal areas, such as Pingtan County in Fujian Province, showing that they were held for a domestic audience,” Wang said.
China has learned from the backlash it received following its military exercises around Taiwan in August last year, after then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, he said.
Those drills also increased support for Taiwan, he said, adding that China is being more restrained this time to avoid a repeat of that situation.
China held off on conducting the drills until after Tsai and McCarthy finished their meeting, and until after French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen left Beijing, where they met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), also to avoid an international backlash, Wang said.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
RSS