Tensions in Taiwanstrasse: China continues great military exercise around Taiwan

China continues his large -scale military exercise around the East Asian island republic of Taiwan. As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army announced, the units in the central and southern part of the sea between China and Taiwan (Taiwanstrasse) practiced. Among other things, the reason is to train precise attacks on important goals and joint blockages, said the colonel of the East Command Shi Yi. According to Beijings, soil troops also trained the shooting over long distances on simulated destinations in the East China Sea.

Unlike the day before, the army of the exercise gave a name and titled the assignment based on Taiwanstrasse “Meierengen-Donner-2025a”. The naming should signal that another exercise will follow this year. Last year, the People’s Liberation Army trained in May under the title “Common Schwert-2024a” around Taiwan and later launched the exercise “Joint Schwert-2024b”.

On Tuesday, Beijing had already announced that the Air Force, Marine and the rocket unit had started to practice around Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense had discovered at least 36 Chinese military planes and 21 warships – including the “Shangdong” aircraft carrier and 10 ships from the coast guard in front of his islands on Wednesday until afternoon (local time).

Beijing held his surprising maneuver just a few days before Taiwan’s planned exercise from April 5th to April 18th. The Taiwanese military wants to simulate scenarios that include a possible escalation from China’s exercises to an actual invasion of Taiwan.

Is China testing new ships for invasion?

This means that Beijing again increases the pressure on the island republic with more than 23 million inhabitants. Because China is one of his territory, although the country has had a government independent and democratically elected by Beijing for decades. The People’s Republic wants to incorporate Taiwan and threatened to use the military, should this not work peacefully.

At the beginning of the year, reports of new Chinese ships appeared that could serve to land in Taiwan. As the “New York Times” reported, the barges would have extended stilts that led into the sea floor. Positioned one after the other and connected via bridge, it could form a connection from the deeper water to the coast. According to the report, the barges have already been tested in southern China.

China sees Taiwan’s government as a separatist

The democratic progress party has been ruled in Taipeh since 2016, which Beijing sees as separatists because Taiwan’s independence is part of her program. President Lai Ching-Te said not to want to explain a formal independence because the island state is already an independent country.

According to Beijings, the exercise now serves as a warning and deterrent of the “independence forces of Taiwan”, as Foreign Office spokesman Guo Jiakun said the day before. Taiwan’s Foreign Office and President Lai condemned the maneuver.

Criticism also came from Brussels. The exercises increased the tensions in Taiwanstrasse, said a spokesman for the EU foreign service. The USA also criticized China’s exercise. They are more important to Taiwan and have undertaken to support the country’s defense. Tammy Bruce, spokeswoman for the US State Department, explained that China’s aggressive military activities and rhetoric once again serve to tighten the tensions and to endanger the security in the region and the prosperity of the world. In view of this, the USA remained obliged to its partner Taiwan.