Beijing continues to put pressure on Taiwan. China is carrying out this Sunday the second day of an exercise “total encirclement” of the island, maneuvers scheduled until Monday and presented by Beijing as a “serious warning” to the authorities of Taiwan after the meeting of its president with a senior US official.
Baptized “Joint Sword”, the operation was strongly denounced by Taiwan. The United States called on Beijing for “restraint” on Saturday, ensuring that it kept its channels of communication with China “open”. “We are confident that we have sufficient resources and capabilities in the region to ensure peace and stability,” the State Department said.
A meeting in California that does not pass
These maneuvers were launched after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting in California on Wednesday with Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, to which Beijing had promised to respond with “firm and forceful” measures. They aim to establish Chinese capabilities to “take control of the sea, airspace and information (…) in order to create deterrence and total encirclement” of Taiwan, state television said on Saturday. Chinese.
On Sunday, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense recalled having detected the presence around the island of nine ships and 71 military aircraft the day before. “The army is closely monitoring the situation” and has asked its “planes, ships and land-based missile systems to react accordingly”, he added. Destroyers, fast missile launchers, fighter planes, tankers and jammers are notably mobilized, according to Beijing.
Live-fire exercises will be held Monday in the Taiwan Strait near the coast of Fujian, the province facing the island, local Chinese maritime authorities also said. These exercises, which have an “operational” dimension, are intended to demonstrate that the Chinese army will be ready, “if the provocations intensify”, to “settle once and for all the question of Taiwan”, according to the military expert. Song Zhongping.
President Tsai Ing-wen for her part denounced China’s “authoritarian expansionism” on Saturday and assured that Taiwan “will continue to work with the United States and other countries (…) to defend the values of freedom and democracy “.