China Begins Live-Fire Military Exercises Around Taiwan | International

China has launched the most important military exercises in decades around Taiwan on Thursday, in a show of force a day after the visit to the island of the president of the House of Representatives of the United States, Nancy Pelosi. The Chinese live-fire drills began around 12:00 p.m. (6:00 a.m. Spanish peninsular time) and will last until the same time on Sunday, according to state television CCTV. Beijing has warned the G7 that it will respond to any violation of its sovereignty.

The maneuvers include the closure of maritime and air space in six zones around the island, one of them about 20 kilometers from the coast of Kaohsiung, the main city in southern Taiwan.

Pelosi left Taiwan on Wednesday at the end of a less than 24-hour visit that angered Beijing, which considers the island part of its territory. The lawmaker, second in line for presidential succession, is the highest-profile US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years since Newt Gingrich’s 1997 trip. At the time, China was in the process of integrating Hong Kong – returned to Beijing that same year by the United Kingdom, so she chose to keep a low profile. In addition, Gingrich was a Republican who presided over the House of Representatives with a Democratic government, that of Bill Clinton, so China interpreted her visit as an internal struggle between the two parties. Pelosi, by contrast, is a Democrat, as is the current president, Joe Biden. The Speaker of the House of Representatives assured that her presence on the island was intended to make it clear that “the United States will not abandon Taiwan.” In response, China has vowed to punish those who “offend” it and announced military exercises in the waters around Taiwan, which include some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Taipei says it is closely monitoring the exercises and that its forces are preparing for conflict, but not looking for it. “The Ministry of National Defense maintains that it will uphold the principle of preparing for war without seeking war, with the attitude of not escalating the conflict or causing disputes,” the Taiwanese government said in a statement. Analysts also do not see the escalation of tension on both sides of the Formosa Strait as likely to trigger a war. They do anticipate an increase in the number of Chinese military exercises in the region and the approval of new sanctions against the island. China has already banned the import of products from more than a hundred Taiwanese companies in the food, agriculture and fishing sectors.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) warn that the situation “could destabilize the region and eventually cause (…) open conflicts and unpredictable consequences between great powers.” The head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, condemns the military exercises and considers that “using a visit cannot be justified. [la de Pelosi] as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing defends the exercises, as well as other maneuvers carried out in recent days around Taiwan, as “just and necessary” and blames the United States and its allies for the escalation. “In the current fight over Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the United States is the provocateur and China is the victim,” according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

China warns the G7 that it will respond to any violation of its sovereignty

The spokesman for the Chinese Mission to the European Union, Zhang Ming, responded this Thursday to the statement shared on Wednesday by the G7 and Union foreign ministers, warning that it will respond to any violation of its sovereignty, while at the same time urged the United States to be held accountable for its actions.

“Taiwan is part of Chinese territory and meddling in its affairs is a violation of China’s sovereignty,” Ming said in a statement shared by his office, where he stressed “any action that violates China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will be returned by the Chinese people.”

Taiwan is not a special administrative region of China, as is the case with Hong Kong and Macao, but functions as a State de facto. The Taiwanese elect their government democratically, they have their own Constitution and an army with some 300,000 troops. For China, the island is just a “rogue” province whose government is “illegitimate.” The diplomatic relations of the Asian giant with the rest of the countries are based on the principle of a single China; namely, There is only one China, and this includes Taiwan.

The Taiwanese issue has been one of the priorities of the Chinese Communist Party, especially since the current president, Xi Jinping, came to power, who considers the “reunification” of the island with mainland China a “historic mission of the party”. The main objective of the Chinese Government is to stop any possibility of a formal declaration of independence. Beijing assures that it privileges the path of peaceful “reunification”, although it does not rule out the use of force as a last resort.

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