© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen meets with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, U.S., April 5, 2023. REUTERS/David Swanson/File Photo
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By Josh Arslan and Ben Blanchard
FUZHOU, China/TAIPEI (Reuters) – China began three days of military exercises around Taiwan on Saturday to express anger over Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. The US, as the island’s Defense Ministry said it would respond. quietly.
The drills, announced the day after Tsai returned from the United States, were highly anticipated after China condemned the meeting with President Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.
China regards democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. The Taiwanese government strongly opposes China’s claims.
Beijing’s announcement also came just hours after China hosted a visit by top European leaders.
The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command said it had begun combat readiness patrols and “Joint Sword” exercises around Taiwan, having previously said it would hold them in the Taiwan Strait and north, south and eastern Taiwan “as planned”. .
“This is a serious warning to Taiwan’s separatist pro-independence forces and the collusion and provocation of external forces, and it is a necessary action to uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said in a brief statement.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it was monitoring the situation, maintaining a high degree of vigilance, and would respond appropriately to uphold the security of the island.
China was using Tsai’s visit to the United States “as an excuse to carry out military exercises, which has seriously damaged regional peace, stability and security,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The military will respond with a calm, rational and serious attitude, and will guard and monitor in accordance with the principles of ‘no escalation and no disputes’ to uphold national sovereignty and national security.”
‘HARASS’ AND ‘SQUEEZE’
A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters China is likely to increase its air and sea patrols in an attempt to “harass” Taiwan’s air defense zone and “squeeze” closer to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which normally serves as an unofficial barrier between the two.
The situation was “as expected” and manageable, and the Taiwan government has rehearsed various scenarios for its response, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The ministry said earlier on Saturday that in the previous 24 hours it had seen four Chinese planes in Taiwan’s air defense zone, a not unusual number.
Reuters reporters in a coastal area near Fuzhou, which lies off the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands, saw a Chinese warship firing shells at a drilling area off China’s coast, part of drills announced by China. Friday night.
Tsai will meet later Saturday with the delegation of US lawmakers, led by Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary on Saturday that the government has “great ability to thwart any form of secession for Taiwan’s independence.”
“All countermeasures taken by the Chinese government belong to China’s legitimate and legal right to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.
Tsai has repeatedly offered talks with China, but has been turned down because the government sees her as a separatist. She says that only the people of Taiwan can decide her future.
DIPLOMACY AND EXERCISES
China had threatened unspecified retaliation if the meeting with McCarthy, second in line to the US president after the vice president, went ahead. Beijing staged war games around Taiwan, including live-fire missile launches, in August after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Unlike in August, however, China has yet to announce whether it will also hold missile drills. In the above case, China released a map at the time it announced the drills, showing which sea areas near Taiwan it would be firing at.
Taiwanese officials had expected a less severe reaction to the McCarthy meeting given that it took place in the United States, but said they could not rule out the possibility of China holding more drills.
China’s announcement came hours after French President Emmanuel Macron left China, where he met with President Xi Jinping and other high-level leaders. Macron urged Beijing to speak common sense to Russia about the war in Ukraine.
European Union head Ursula von der Leyen, also in China this week to meet Xi, said stability across the Taiwan Strait was of paramount importance.
Xi responded by saying that expecting China to commit to Taiwan was an “illusion,” according to China’s official reading of the meeting.
China’s Defense Ministry, in addition to publishing the announcement of the drills in Taiwan, displayed images on its homepage of Xi meeting with Macron and von der Leyen.
The Taiwanese security source said China’s recent efforts to charm foreign leaders were in vain after the announcement of the drills.
“After the announcement of the drills in the strait, all those efforts vanished overnight and became a futile effort.”