TAIPEI, Taiwan — (AP) — China held large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday in what it called a warning against Taiwan independence.
China’s Defense Ministry said the drills were a response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s refusal to concede to Beijing’s demands that Taiwan acknowledge itself as a part of the People’s Republic of China under the rule of the Communist Party.
The drills came four days after the self-ruled island celebrated the founding of its government, during which Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to "resist annexation or encroachment."
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry called the drills a provocation and said its forces were prepared to respond, while the Presidential Office of Taiwan called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
“Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately” said Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan's security council at a forum in Taipei. “Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means."
A map aired on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed six large blocks encircling Taiwan indicating where the military drills are being held, along with circles drawn around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Navy Senior Captain Li Xi said the navy, army air force, missile corps were all mobilized for the drills. “This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
A previous iteration of the drills was held after Lai was inaugurated in May. Lai continues the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China's demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China.
China also held massive military exercises around Taiwan in 2022, after Nancy Pelosi made a brief visit to the island, simulating a blockade. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability.
On the streets of Taipei, residents were undeterred. “I don’t worry, I don’t panic either, it doesn’t have any impact to me” Chang Chia-rui said.
Another Taipei resident, Jeff Huang, said: “Taiwan is very stable now, and I am used to China’s military exercises. I have been threatened by this kind of threats since I was a child, and I am used to it.”
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power on the mainland.
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