Taiwan accuses China of using Nancy Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to upset the ‘status quo’ | International

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu launched a new dart against China on Tuesday. The Taiwanese foreign minister accused the Asian giant of using last week’s visit to the self-governing island of Nancy Pelosi, the third authority of the United States, as a pretext to “alter the status quo of the Strait of Formosa and the entire region. Beijing has responded to the 19-hour stoppage of the president of the US House of Representatives in Taipei with unprecedented military maneuvers around the island that it considers an inalienable part of its territory, in addition to freezing dialogue with the United States on key issues. The war practices, which were supposed to end on Sunday, have dragged on and it is still unknown when they will end. For its part, the Taiwanese Army carried out its own exercises early this Tuesday, in which it simulated an action plan in the event that Chinese troops tried to land on the island.

Joseph Wu expressed this Tuesday morning during a conference held in Taipei that Beijing intends to gain control of the East China Sea and the South China Sea through the Strait of Formosa and that, to achieve this, it is hiding behind Nancy Pelosi’s controversial Asia-Pacific tour. The Taiwanese Foreign Minister once again condemned the military maneuvers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, the Chinese Armed Forces): “The exercises show China’s geostrategic ambition beyond Taiwan.” “China has no right to interfere or disrupt the people’s democratic process or Taiwan’s interaction with other nations,” Wu said. “Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are separate jurisdictions that are not subordinate to each other,” he added.

For his part, Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, affirmed this Tuesday during the daily press conference that the EPL’s maneuvers are “transparent and professional” and that they “conform to national legislation, international law and international practice.” international”. Although the drills were originally reported to end on Sunday, the PLA announced Tuesday that its Navy and Air Force will continue joint exercises in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, without specifying an end date. The Chinese Army reported that these latest drills are intended to prepare the “joint defense and blockade” operations of the island, while last week’s maneuvers included live fire and the launch of ballistic missiles.

The announcement was published hours after the US president, Joe Biden, indicated that “he is not worried” about the escalation of tension in the Strait of Formosa and that he does not believe that China “is going to go further”. On Monday, US Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl said that “nothing that has happened was unexpected” and that the Pentagon has not changed its assessment that “China will not try to take over the island militarily in the next two years.” However, he added that the PLA’s show of force makes it clear that Beijing “is trying to coerce Taiwan and the international community.” Given this situation, “we are not going to take the bait,” said Kahl.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu stressed on Tuesday in an interview with state television channels CCTV and CGTN that “the crisis has been caused by the United States, because it ignored China’s repeated and solemn statements about the visit , and allowed Pelosi to go to Taiwan.”

When asked what he foresees will happen if the United States responds to the escalation militarily, the senior official said that “it has been shown time and time again that the United States is the biggest disturber of peace in the strait [de Formosa] and regional stability. If the international community allows the United States to do what it wants, the UN Charter will be just a piece of paper and the law of the jungle will prevail. In the end, it will be the developing countries that suffer.” Ma assured that “the Chinese people will not be fooled by fallacies” and “will never hesitate to defend our fundamental interests.”

This Tuesday morning the Taiwanese Army carried out its own drills with live artillery in the southern county of Pingtung, close to one of the seven areas where the PLA are taking place. During the exercises, which have practiced how to react to an invasion by sea, Taiwanese soldiers deployed 38 cannons on the shore and fired a total of 114 shells. The exercises, which were planned since July, have lasted an hour.

Lou Woei-jye, a spokesman for the Eighth Taiwan Army Corps, told reporters that the duty of the military is “to protect the motherland” and that the drills will continue regardless of how the current situation evolves. The Taiwanese military plans to hold the same drill on Thursday.

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