BEIJING: China is staging live-fire military drills in six self- declared zones surrounding Taiwan in response to a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island Beijing claims as its own territory.
China has warned aircraft and ships to avoid the areas during the exercises, which run through Sunday.
The drills appear to be a rehearsal for a potential blockade and invasion of Taiwan that would almost certainly draw in its chief supporter, the United States, and American allies including Japan and Australia.China’s two million-strong military is the world’s largest and its navy has more ships than the United States.
Taiwan’s armed forces can’t compare in numbers, but it has vowed to resist coercive measures to impose Chinese Communist Party rule over the self- governing island democracy.
What is China doing near Taiwan’s skies and seas?
Live-fire exercises are a test of a military’s ability to perform missions under conditions most resembling actual warfare. In this case, they are designed to show the level of force China could unleash against Taiwan if Beijing decided to make good on the pledge to seize control of the island and punish those supporting its independence.
The exercises are thought to be the largest and most threatening toward Taiwan since Beijing launched missiles into waters near the island in 1995 and 1996 after a visit to the United States by then president Lee Teng-hui.
What is China’s aim?
China has increasingly forcefully declared that Taiwan must be brought under its control by force if necessary, in defiance of Washington and other backers of the island’s democracy. Pelosi’s visit came at a particularly sensitive time, when Chinese President and head of the armed forces Xi Jinping is preparing to seek a third five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party.
How long will tensions last?
It remains unclear whether China will seek to keep tensions at a high pitch after the end of the current round of exercises.
Spokespeople from the Foreign and Defense Ministries, the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office and other departments have vowed President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration and the United States will pay a price over Pelosi’s visit, but have not detailed how and when that objective will be achieved. — AP
