Status: 08/05/2022 08:06 a.m
China’s military maneuvers off Taiwan have sparked international criticism. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen also condemned the exercises in the strongest possible terms – but Beijing continued them today.
It’s an interesting map published by Japan on the Chinese maneuvers. China and the autonomously governed island of Taiwan are both marked in green – there are also red dots and lines with the trajectories of the People’s Liberation Army missiles. One of them also goes directly over a yellow dot – next to it is Taipei. One or more rockets then flew directly over the capital. The Taiwanese government has so far neither confirmed nor denied this.
President Tsai-Ing-wen called the live ammunition drills an “irresponsible act” and once again reiterated Taiwan’s determination.
We are committed to maintaining the status quo on both sides of the Straits and have always been open to constructive dialogue. Taiwan will never let challenges get you down.
Chinese missiles had also flown over the center line, which is indirectly considered the border, several times. Defense experts had already expected that China’s maneuvers would try to further soften this line in order to emphasize what they saw as a legitimate claim to the island. The missiles over Taipei, meanwhile, appear to have been flying at high altitudes – but what if next time they were fighter jets flying much lower.
Late in the evening, President Tsai Ing-wen said in general:
I want to emphasize that we will not escalate conflicts or provoke quarrels, but we will resolutely defend our sovereignty and national security and stand by the line of defense of democracy and freedom.
Be calm and prudent, she probably tried to calm the people down. In recent days, whether by nationalist Chinese hackers or by the communist regime, it has repeatedly been confronted with false reports in which there was already talk of a war. There have also been large-scale cyber attacks.
Japan condemns the crackdown in the strongest possible terms
However, it is no accident that Japan published such a detailed map of the Chinese military exercises. The East Asian country is one of the most important supporters of a free Indo-Pacific – and was therefore anything but enthusiastic when it realized that China had fired nine ballistic missiles in a row yesterday. Five of them ended up in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. And for the first time, as Secretary of Defense Nobue Kishi explained:
We strongly condemn this practice as it severely compromises the security of our country and the security of our people. We protested strongly against China through diplomatic channels.
The trigger for the latest escalation, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has meanwhile arrived in Japan and met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. After the talks, he asked China to stop all military activities immediately.
Chinese maneuvers around Taiwan – update
Kathrin Erdmann, ARD Tokyo, August 5, 2022 5:25 a.m