Taiwanese air force Mirage 2000 fighter jets wait to take off at the base in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan on Thursday.
YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images
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YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images
China launched military exercises around Taiwan during the week of the Asian democratic island’s inauguration. He called on China in his inauguration speech to “end political and military threats” against Taiwan.
China’s Eastern Theater Command said the air force, navy and ground forces will participate in the exercise, which will last until Friday. China’s state media said the exercise was a show of force intended to “serve as a strong punishment for the separatist actions of Taiwan independence forces” – a reference to underground to Taiwan’s new president. Lai Ching-tewhom China calls a “dangerous separatist”.
Taiwan indicates it has been sent air force and navy to monitor the exercises, which the country’s defense ministry called “unjustified provocation” and “highlighted [China’s] hegemonic nature.”
Taiwan National Security Council has been warned as early as March that they expected China to conduct military exercises after Taiwan’s inauguration. Summer and early fall are a time when China typically conducts military exercises, and Beijing has conducted military exercises just before or after Taiwan’s previous two inaugurations.
But the timing and scale of the exercises, which last until Friday, are a grim reminder that China wants to control self-governing Taiwan. not yet excluded an outright invasion to do just that.
China first debutmilitary exercises that thing Surrounded all sides of Taiwan and its smaller, outlying islands in the summer of 2022, after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, angered China. Since then, China has increased significantlyFrequent military threats around Taiwan, including near-daily air and sea patrols.
A survey released this month from the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution found that in 2023, 64.8% of respondents said they were worried about a war between China and Taiwan, an increase of 7, 4 percentage points compared to 2021.
In response to China’s military aggression, Lai’s party, the Democratic Progressive Party, led by his predecessor, former president Tsai Ing-wen, military reform has begun and increased military spending, measures they say would prevent a Chinese invasion from happening by making the cost of war too high. Last year they also extension obligation for young men up to one year (up from four months) and Women are allowed in its reserve force.
Lai, son of a coal miner people trained to be doctors before entering politics, was haunted by comments he made in 2017, when he was prime minister of Taiwan, in which he said he was a “pragmatist for Taiwanese independence Loan”.
His opening speech did not deviate from the unofficial “status quo” that left Taiwan’s sovereignty status ambiguous, a status Most people in Taiwan are supportive about the island’s official declaration of independence. Most countries in the world, including the United States, do not recognize Taiwan as a country, a vestige of the ongoing rivalry between the Chinese and Taiwanese governments, stemming from the civil war of the last century .
But Lai has been concluded that “the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not interdependent”, referring to Taiwan and China respectively – a position that China considers a violationits principles that Taiwan is part of its territory.
China’s top government office for Taiwan affairs slam Lai’s speech this week said it sent “a dangerous signal” about Taiwan’s quest for independence.
