China has started live-fire military exercises around Taiwan, hours after announcing “major” drills in waters and airspace near the self-governed democratic island.<\/p>\n
China’s military “is employing destroyers, frigates, fighters, bombers and unmanned aerial vehicles” in the drills that include “live-fire training on maritime targets to the north and southwest of Taiwan”, a statement by the People’s Liberation Army said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan authorities said it had detected four Chinese coastguard ships near the democratic island’s waters, as China announced the start of live-fire drills.<\/p>\n
The four vessels were “sailing near waters off Taiwan’s northern and eastern coasts today”, the Taiwanese coastguard said, adding it “immediately deployed large vessels to pre-position responses in relevant areas” and “sent additional support units”.<\/p>\n
Earlier China announced “major” military exercises around Taiwan saying it would conduct live-fire drills the following day across five zones in waters and airspace near the island.<\/p>\n
China claims self-governed Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has refused to rule out using military action to seize the island democracy.<\/p>\n
The latest show of force follows a bumper round of arms sales to Taiwan by the United States, Taiwan’s main security backer.<\/p>\n
China will send army, navy, air force and rocket force troops to conduct “major military drills” code-named “Justice Mission 2025”, said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command.<\/p>\n
The drills are “a stern warning against ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces, and… a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity”, Mr Shi said.<\/p>\n
Plans involve vessels “approaching the Taiwan Island in close proximity from different directions”, he said.<\/p>\n
The “joint assaults” are intended to “test their joint operations capabilities”, he added.<\/p>\n
The activities will focus on “sea-air combat readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, blockade on key ports and areas, as well as all-dimensional deterrence outside the island chain”, Mr Shi said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan condemned China’s “disregard for international norms and the use of military intimidation to threaten neighbouring countries”, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s military said it had established a response centre, deployed “appropriate forces” and “carried out a rapid response exercise”.<\/p>\n
The drills by China’s ruling Communist Party “further confirm its nature as an aggressor, making it the greatest destroyer of peace”, Taipei’s defence ministry said.<\/p>\n
China’s military last held large-scale drills involving live firing around Taiwan in April.<\/p>\n
The United States called them “intimidation tactics”, and Britain warned they were “risking dangerous escalation”.<\/p>\n
China said this month it would take “resolute and forceful measures” to safeguard its territory after Taiwan said the US had approved a major $11 billion arms sale.<\/p>\n
China announced fresh sanctions on 20 American defence companies last week, though they appeared to have little or no business in China.<\/p>\n
Last month, Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a backlash from China when she said the use of force against Taiwan could warrant a military response from Tokyo.<\/p>\n
China demanded that she retract her statement, summoned Tokyo’s ambassador, and warned its citizens against travelling to Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China has started live-fire military exercises around Taiwan, hours after announcing “major” drills in waters and airspace near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-215961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}