China has announced fresh military drills around Taiwan today, continuing to pile pressure on the self-governing island and its allies in Washington.
Beijing said its forces would carry out live-fire anti-submarine and sea raid drills on Monday, without giving a precise end date.
It comes after four days of live-fire drills which saw China fire ballistic missiles over the island for the first time came to an end last night.
Xi Jinping's regime has justified the drills by saying they are in response to a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island last week.
But John Kirby, Biden's national security council coordinator, has condemned the war games as an 'irresponsible' and 'provocative' move designed to undermine peace in the region.
As part of the games - which Chinese state media referred to as rehearsal for an invasion - dozens of aircraft and ships have crossed the 'meridian line' that separates Taiwan from China down the center of the Taiwan Strait.
Continuing the drills into Monday has led to fears that China could be preparing for a sustained campaign of pressure on the island, which Xi has vowed to 'reunify' with the mainland.
'The eastern theatre of the Chinese People's Liberation Army continued to carry out practical joint exercises and training in the sea and airspace around Taiwan island,' the military said.
The exercises, the PLA's Eastern Command said, were 'focusing on organising joint anti-submarine and sea assault operations'.
Taipei condemned Beijing for extending the drills.
'China's provocation and aggression have harmed the status quo of the Taiwan Strait and raised tensions in the region,' the island's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Beijing was also set to carry out live-fire drills on Monday in parts of the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea.
Taiwan has remained defiant throughout the Chinese drills.
Its military said it would hold anti-landing exercises in Taiwan's south on Tuesday and Thursday.
'We will practise counter moves against simulated enemy attacks on Taiwan,' Lou Woei-jye, spokesman for the Eighth Army Corps, told AFP.
They will include the deployment of hundreds of troops and about 40 howitzer guns, the military said.
Taiwan has insisted that no Chinese planes or ships have entered Taiwan's territorial waters during the drills.
But to show how close it came to Taiwan's shores, the Chinese military released a video of an air force pilot filming the island's coastline and mountains from his cockpit.
The Eastern Command also shared a photo it said was of a warship on patrol with Taiwan's shoreline visible in the background.
Ballistic missiles were fired over Taiwan's capital during the exercises last week, according to Chinese state media.
The scale and intensity of China's drills - as well as its withdrawal from key talks on climate and defence - have triggered outrage in the United States and other democracies.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington is 'determined to act responsibly' to avoid a major global crisis.
But Beijing on Monday defended its behaviour as 'firm, forceful and appropriate' to American provocation.
'(We) are only issuing a warning to the perpetrators,' foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing, promising China would 'firmly smash the Taiwan authorities' illusion of gaining independence through the US'.
1 comment:
China only has to wait for the vaccine to take effect before absorbing Taiwan. But America wants ww3 and thus interferes. Who is the criminal here.
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