China organized military exercises around Taiwan for a second day on Wednesday, sending warships and fighter planes near the island in what Beijing said it was a warning to its president, Lai Ching-te, after calling China a “foreign hostile force”.
The second day of the exercises would focus on Chinese army’s abilities to control and seal the seas and heavens around Taiwan, Colonel Senior Shi Yi, spokesperson for the regional army of the popular liberation army which supervises Taiwan, said in a press release. Colonel Senior Shi also said that In the East China Sea – further from Taiwan – Chinese forces have held long -distance strikes in “simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities”.
Chinese officials said that the demonstration of military power had been provoked by a speech that Mr. Lai delivered on March 13, in which he described China as “foreign hostile force” and established 17 measures which, according to him, would fight to deepen Chinese subversion and espionage in Taiwan. They understood the restoration of military courts to hear cases against military staff accused of spying.
Tuesday, the Ministry of National Defense of Taiwan counted the Chinese military weapons which had approached Taiwan in the early afternoon on the first day of the exercises: 71 outings by military aircraft, including the drones and 21 ships of the navy varied around the island, including a group accompanying the transporter of Shandong planes which was around 220 nautical miles east of Taiwan.
None of the Chinese ships or planes crossed a border of 24 naval miles around Taiwan, ministry officials said on Tuesday. The Chinese coastal guard also announced that he had sent ships On “the application of laws” patrolled around two groups of islands controlled by Taiwan.
Beijing says Taiwan is its territory, and those responsible describe Mr. Lai as an independence activist fundamentally opposed to their objectives.
Major-General Meng Xiangqing, a Chinese military scholar who often serves a spokesperson, said the exercises were intended to warn Taiwan for the risks and costs of a real blockage.
“A joint blockade would use our large weapons to prevent separatists from Taiwan’s independence from escaping and preventing external assistance from entering” on the island, He said in a video On the main website of the new China soldiers. “If Taiwan loses its lines of supply at sea, its interior resources will be quickly exhausted and its social order will descend into chaos.”
But despite Beijing’s ardent language and the considerable military gap, the experts said that the exercises seemed intimidated to intimidate Taiwan without going to a broader confrontation. Mr. Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party deny that Taiwan is part of China – a key premise in Beijing’s claim that the island is its territory – and Beijing officials have already vehemently denounced Mr. Lai’s recent speech. Tuesday, Chinese media published caricatures This described Mr. Lai as a parasitic plan.
“He tries to get closer to Taiwan to exercise more psychological pressure,” said Su Tzu-Yun, another researcher from the National Defense and Security Research Institute, about the last exercises in China.
While Beijing has linked the exercises to Mr. Lai’s comments, Mr. SU and other experts said Chinese leaders also seemed to send an implicit message to the Trump administration. Lai sought to maintain the support of the United States in Taiwan during the mandate of President Trump, in particular by promising to increase his military spending to more than 3% of the island’s economic production this year.
“Advertising around exercise probably has the United States in mind-they want to persuade the Trump administration that Lai is a troublemaker and dissuade the United States from maintaining high levels of Taiwan,” said Amanda HsiaoAnalyst for the Eurasia group which monitors Chinese foreign policy and Chinese-Taiwan tensions.
The exercises occurred a few days after the United States Secretary for Defense, Pete Hegseth, visited Tokyo to discuss the strengthening of military ties with Japan. Hegseth said there that the Trump administration would focus on the fight against Chinese power, including his efforts to tighten Taiwan.
“America is committed to supporting a robust, ready and credible deterrence in Indo-Pacific, including in the Strait of Taiwan”, Mr. Hegseth said in a press conference With the Minister of Japan of Defense, General Nakatani. Mr. Hegseth has also published internal guidelines in the Pentagon who say that American forces must focus on dissuading it from China to try to grasp Taiwan by force, force Washington Post reported.
However, China may not have an appetite for the moment for extensive military exercises which could deepen the divisions between the Trump administration and the chief of China, Xi Jinping. Xi is already competing with Trump on additional American rates on Chinese products that were imposed last month, with perhaps more prices to come this week. Official Chinese statements over the last years have not mentioned the United States.
“China is really interested in not showing weakness”, ” Wen-Ti SugA researcher in Taiwan and a non -resident scholarship holder of the World Center for the Atlantic Council, said about Mr. XI’s approach to the Trump administration. “But China will respond with just enough firmness to make sure that a ramp out of the ramp remains.”
