LAST UPDATE: 08.08
Taiwan’s foreign minister charged today that China has moved into military training centers around the island to “prepare” an invasion and “change the status quo” in the Asia-Pacific region.
“China is using its high schools and military roadmap to prepare an invasion of Taiwan,” Joseph Wu said during a press conference in Taipei. “China’s true intention is to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and throughout the region,” he continued.
Beijing was looking for pretexts to move on to high schools, and the visit of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, gave it the opportunity, the head of Taiwan’s diplomacy also claimed.
In his view, the best way to counter China’s attempt to terrorize Taiwan is to demonstrate that the island is not intimidated.
He called the high schools around the island a flagrant violation of international law, noting that they obstructed traffic on one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
At least 20 Chinese and Taiwanese warships remained close to the median line in the strait earlier today and some Chinese tried to cross it, an unnamed source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters news agency. The same source said several Chinese warships continue to operate off Taiwan’s eastern coast.
According to Reuters, the Chinese military will resume high schools around the island today.
Taiwan: Live-fire Artillery Training Centers Simulate Response to Chinese Invasion
Taiwan’s armed forces today began live-fire artillery drills simulating the island’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack, amid large-scale Chinese military training centers in areas around it, an AFP reporter on the ground found.
Lou Wei-jie, a spokesman for Taiwan’s 8th Army, confirmed that the drills began in Pingtung County (southern) after 03:40 (GMT), with flares and mortar fire. They were to be completed at 04:30 (Greece time), he added.
Several hundred military personnel and approximately 40 howitzers participate in the high schools — which continue the day after tomorrow Thursday — the army clarified.
China last week launched its largest-ever military drills around Taiwan in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. She was the highest-ranking US official to visit Taipei in decades.
China considers Taiwan, of about 23 million people, which has its own autonomous government, a breakaway province destined to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The island has remained autonomous since the end of the civil war (1949).
Mr Low said yesterday that the exercises by Taiwan’s military were already planned, in other words they were not a reaction to the ongoing Chinese high schools.
The island’s armed forces regularly organize such exercises, such as last month, to repel attacks from the sea.
Source: Capital
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