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China’s military encirclement exercises continue Monday morning in the Taiwan Strait. The island’s authorities claim to have detected 11 Chinese warships and 59 aircraft around Taiwan. And for the third straight day of military exercises, live ammunition is expected to be fired.
The maneuvers began at 7 am (local time) and will last until 8 pm on Monday. Live ammunition is expected to be fired near the island of Pingtan, located off China’s eastern Fujian province, just across the border from Taiwan, our Beijing correspondent Stéphane Lagarde reports. Civilian boats have been warned to stay out of the waterways.
According to Beijing, quoted by AFP, “attacks were simulated” near Taiwan by Chinese planes “carrying live ammunition”. It is not the first time that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has fired live ammunition in the Taiwan Strait. Similar maneuvers were carried out in the summer of 2022, after the visit to the island of the speaker of the United States House of Representatives. These exercises took place at distances closer to the Taiwanese coast.
propaganda videos
This new operation, called “Joint Sword”, is the subject of propaganda clips with military music and images of planes, ships, including the latest Chinese aircraft carrier, the Shandong, present in the area and soldiers in action leaving their barracks. The objective is to organize the “closure” of Taiwan, as the Chinese authorities said this morning. These maneuvers in response to Tsai Ingwen’s visit to the United States are expected to continue on Tuesday the 11th, Thursday the 13th, Saturday the 15th, Monday the 17th and Thursday the 20th of April.
Eastern theater around Taiwan island combat readiness police patrol and “joint sword” exercise.
现场画面！东部战区环台岛战备警巡和“联合利剑”演习。 pic.twitter.com/cgemvSMDsg— Chunyu 春雨 (@Chunyu_China) April 8, 2023
The United States also appeared to want to make a show of force: The US missile destroyer USS Milius carried out a “freedom of navigation operation” on Monday in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Beijing. An “intrusion,” China immediately declared. The US State Department reiterated its call “not to change the status quo”, while the Pentagon claimed to be “closely following developments”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin warned that peace in the Taiwan Strait and the island’s independence are incompatible, at a briefing on Monday. “If we want to protect peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, we must firmly oppose any form of separatism for Taiwan’s independence,” he declared.
