China stages military drills around Taiwan to warn ‘external forces’ after US, Japan tensions

Chi­na’s mil­i­tary on Mon­day dis­patched air, navy and mis­sile units to con­duct joint live-fire drills around the is­land of Tai­wan, which Bei­jing called a “stern warn­ing” against sep­a­ratist and “ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence” forces. Tai­wan said it was plac­ing its forces on alert and called the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment “the biggest de­stroy­er of peace.”

Tai­wan’s avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ty said more than 100,000 in­ter­na­tion­al air trav­el­ers would be af­fect­ed by flight can­cel­la­tions or di­ver­sions.

The drills came af­ter Bei­jing ex­pressed anger at what could be the largest-ever U.S. arms sale to the self-ruled ter­ri­to­ry and at a state­ment by Japan’s prime min­is­ter, Sanae Takaichi, say­ing its mil­i­tary could get in­volved if Chi­na were to take ac­tion against Tai­wan. Chi­na says Tai­wan must come un­der its rule.

The Chi­nese mil­i­tary did not men­tion the Unit­ed States and Japan in its state­ment on Mon­day, but Bei­jing’s for­eign min­istry ac­cused the Tai­wanese rul­ing par­ty of try­ing to seek in­de­pen­dence through re­quest­ing U.S. sup­port.

Tai­wan’s De­fense Min­istry said rapid re­sponse ex­er­cis­es were un­der­way, with forces on high alert. “The Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s tar­get­ed mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es fur­ther con­firm its na­ture as an ag­gres­sor and the biggest de­stroy­er of peace,” it said.

Bei­jing sends war­planes and navy ves­sels to­ward the is­land on a near-dai­ly ba­sis, and in re­cent years it has stepped up the scope and scale of these ex­er­cis­es.

Se­nior Col. Shi Yi, spokesper­son of Chi­na’s Peo­ple’s Lib­er­a­tion Army’s East­ern The­ater Com­mand, said the drills would be con­duct­ed in the Tai­wan Strait and ar­eas to the north, south­west, south­east and east of the is­land.

Shi said the ac­tiv­i­ties would fo­cus on sea-air com­bat readi­ness pa­trol, “joint seizure of com­pre­hen­sive su­pe­ri­or­i­ty” and block­ades on key ports. It was al­so the first large-scale mil­i­tary drill where the com­mand pub­licly men­tioned one goal was “all-di­men­sion­al de­ter­rence out­side the is­land chain.”

“It is a stern warn­ing against ‘Tai­wan in­de­pen­dence’ sep­a­ratist forces and ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence forces, and it is a le­git­i­mate and nec­es­sary ac­tion to safe­guard Chi­na’s sov­er­eign­ty and na­tion­al uni­ty,” Shi said.

Chi­na and Tai­wan have been gov­erned sep­a­rate­ly since 1949, when a civ­il war brought the Com­mu­nist Par­ty to pow­er in Bei­jing. De­feat­ed Na­tion­al­ist Par­ty forces fled to Tai­wan. The is­land has op­er­at­ed since then with its own gov­ern­ment, though the main­land’s gov­ern­ment claims it as sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry.

Drills will con­tin­ue on Tues­day

The com­mand on Mon­day de­ployed de­stroy­ers, frigates, fight­ers, bombers and un­manned aer­i­al ve­hi­cles, along­side long-range rock­ets, to the north and south­west of the Tai­wan Strait. It car­ried out live-fire ex­er­cis­es against tar­gets in the wa­ters as well. Among oth­er train­ing, drills to test the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of sea-air co­or­di­na­tion and pre­cise tar­get hunt­ing were con­duct­ed in the wa­ters and air­space to the east of the strait.

Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the gen­er­al staff for in­tel­li­gence of the Tai­wanese De­fense Min­istry, said that as of 3 p.m. Mon­day, 89 air­craft and drones were op­er­at­ing around the strait, with 67 of them en­ter­ing the “re­sponse zone” — air­space un­der the force’s mon­i­tor­ing and re­sponse. In the sea, the min­istry de­tect­ed 14 navy ships around the strait and four oth­er war­ships in the West­ern Pa­cif­ic, in ad­di­tion to 14 coast guard ves­sels.

“Con­duct­ing live-fire ex­er­cis­es around the Tai­wan Strait … does not on­ly mean mil­i­tary pres­sure on us. It may bring more com­plex im­pact and chal­lenges to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and neigh­bor­ing coun­tries,” Hsieh told re­porters.

Mil­i­tary drills are set to con­tin­ue Tues­day. Tai­wan’s Civ­il Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion said Chi­nese au­thor­i­ties had is­sued a no­tice say­ing sev­en tem­po­rary dan­ger­ous zones would be set up around the strait to car­ry out rock­et-fir­ing ex­er­cis­es from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tues­day, bar­ring air­craft from en­ter­ing them.

The Tai­wanese avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ty said more than 850 in­ter­na­tion­al flights were ini­tial­ly sched­uled dur­ing that pe­ri­od and the drills would af­fect over 100,000 trav­el­ers. Over 80 do­mes­tic flights, in­volv­ing around 6,000 pas­sen­gers, were al­so can­celed, it added.

The Chi­nese com­mand re­leased themed posters about the drills on­line ac­com­pa­nied by provoca­tive word­ing. One poster de­pict­ed two shields with the Great Wall along­side three mil­i­tary air­craft and two ships. Its so­cial me­dia post said the drills were about the “Shield of Jus­tice, Smash­ing Il­lu­sion,” adding that any for­eign in­ter­lop­ers or sep­a­ratists touch­ing the shields would be elim­i­nat­ed.

Last week, Bei­jing im­posed sanc­tions against 20 U.S. de­fense-re­lat­ed com­pa­nies and 10 ex­ec­u­tives, a week af­ter Wash­ing­ton an­nounced large-scale arms sales to Tai­wan val­ued at more than $10 bil­lion. It still re­quires ap­proval by the U.S. Con­gress.

Un­der U.S. fed­er­al law in place for many years, Wash­ing­ton is ob­lig­at­ed to as­sist Taipei with its de­fense, a point that has be­come in­creas­ing­ly con­tentious with Chi­na. The U.S. and Tai­wan had for­mal diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions un­til 1979, when Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter’s ad­min­is­tra­tion rec­og­nized and es­tab­lished re­la­tions with Bei­jing.

Asked about the drills, Chi­nese for­eign min­istry spokesper­son Lin Jian said Tai­wan’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pro­gres­sive Par­ty has at­tempt­ed “to seek in­de­pen­dence by so­lic­it­ing U.S. sup­port and even risk turn­ing Tai­wan in­to a pow­der keg and am­mu­ni­tion de­pot.”

“Ex­ter­nal forces’ at­tempts to use Tai­wan to con­tain Chi­na and to arm Tai­wan will on­ly em­bold­en the Tai­wan in­de­pen­dence forces and push the Tai­wan Strait to­ward a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion of mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion and war,” he said.

There was no im­me­di­ate U.S. state­ment on the drills.

Tai­wanese army on high alert

Karen Kuo, spokesper­son for the Tai­wanese pres­i­dent’s of­fice, said the drills were un­der­min­ing the sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the Tai­wan Strait and In­do-Pa­cif­ic re­gion and open­ly chal­leng­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law and or­der.

“Our coun­try strong­ly con­demns the Chi­nese au­thor­i­ties for dis­re­gard­ing in­ter­na­tion­al norms and us­ing mil­i­tary in­tim­i­da­tion to threat­en neigh­bor­ing coun­tries.” she said.

Tai­wan’s De­fense Min­istry re­leased a video that fea­tured its weapons and forces in a show of re­silience. Mul­ti­ple French Mi­rage-2000 air­craft con­duct­ed land­ings at an air force base.

In Oc­to­ber, the Tai­wanese gov­ern­ment said it would ac­cel­er­ate the build­ing of a “Tai­wan Shield” or “T-Dome” air de­fense sys­tem in the face of the mil­i­tary threat from Chi­na.

The mil­i­tary ten­sions came a day af­ter Taipei May­or Chi­ang Wan-an said he hoped the Tai­wan Strait would be as­so­ci­at­ed with peace and pros­per­i­ty, in­stead of “crash­ing waves and howl­ing winds,” dur­ing a trip to Shang­hai.