China is stepping up its military preparedness to overtake Taiwan, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday, following a spike of Chinese drills near the nation.
Taiwan has said that China has stepped up threatening military activities near the nation in the past few months, while Beijing has not renounced the use of force to unify the nations.
“Looking [at] the long-term trend, China appears to be gradually stepping up its military preparedness, especially in air or on the waters near Taiwan,” Wu told reporters.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Defense via CNA
“What China is doing now is continuing to ramp up preparedness to solve the Taiwan issue,” he said. “The threat is on the rise.”
Beijing routinely says that such exercises are not unusual and are designed to show its determination to defend its sovereignty.
The Ministry of Defense last month reported eight incidents in which Chinese military planes entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone and Taiwanese jets gave radio warnings to usher the intruders out of their airspace.
Wu said that such intrusions “happened almost every day” last month and were “much more frequent” than what the government had disclosed to the public.
China has also made several “simulated” military attacks on Taiwan, he said.
“These behaviors worry us,” Wu said, adding that Taiwan is deepening its security ties with allies, including the US which has no official diplomatic ties with the nation, but is its strongest international backer and main arms supplier.
Attacking Taiwan could be good way for the Chinese government to divert domestic pressure, Wu said, adding that China is struggling with a fast-slowing economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a wave of floods.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS