By Josh Arslan, Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
FUZHOU, China/TAIPEI, April 8 (Reuters) – Seventy-one Chinese military aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, as China began maneuvers around the island in anger over President Tsai’s meeting Ing-wen with the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
The three-day exercises, announced the day after Tsai returned from the United States, were to be expected after Beijing condemned her meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
China regards Taiwan as its part of its territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the democratically-ruled island under its control. The Taiwanese government strongly opposes the Chinese claims.
Beijing’s announcement came hours after the close of a visit to China by senior European leaders.
The People’s Liberation Army stated that it had started combat readiness patrols and exercises around Taiwan, having previously said it would conduct them in the Taiwan Strait and north, south and east of the island “as scheduled “.
“This is a serious warning to Taiwan’s separatist pro-independence forces and collusion and provocation by external forces, and is a necessary action to uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Chinese army’s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement. release.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had sighted 71 Chinese aircraft, including fighters and bombers, crossing the dividing line that normally serves as an unofficial barrier between the two sides as of 4:00 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday, as well as nine Chinese ships.
China was using Tsai’s visit to the United States “as an excuse to conduct military exercises, which has seriously damaged regional peace, stability and security,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The military will respond with a calm, rational and serious attitude, and will stand guard and monitor in accordance with the principles of ‘no escalation and no dispute’ to defend sovereignty and national security.”
Chinese state television broadcast footage of the drills, set to martial music, showing warships at sea and mobile missile launchers at the ready, though no missile launches were seen. He reported that the fighter jets went up armed with real weapons.
Reuters could not establish when or where the material was shot.
SITUATION “AS EXPECTED”
In Taiwan, long accustomed to Chinese threats, there was no sense of general alarm over the exercises.
China had threatened unspecified retaliation if the meeting with McCarthy – second in line to the US president after the vice president – took place. Beijing staged war games around Taiwan, including the launch of live missiles, in August after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
A senior Taiwanese official familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters that the planes involved in the morning’s missions had only briefly crossed the dividing line.
The situation was “as expected” and manageable, and the Taiwan government has rehearsed various scenarios for its response, the person said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Reuters reporters who were in a coastal area near Fuzhou, off the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands, watched as a Chinese warship fired shells at an exercise area off the Chinese coast, part of drills announced by China to late Friday.
On her Facebook page, Tsai said she had been informed of the security situation and that the army was at her post 24 hours a day.
“Taiwan will join all democracy-loving partners in the world and jointly shoulder the responsibility of ensuring regional stability and prosperity,” he added.
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial on Saturday that the government has “great ability to thwart any form of Taiwan’s secession of independence.”
“All countermeasures taken by the Chinese government belong to China’s legitimate and legal right to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said. (Reporting by Josh Arslan in Fuzhou, China and Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
Source: Ambito