The military maneuvers launched after the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the largest ever made around Taiwan, were to end on Sunday. The Chinese army did not specify where the new exercises took place, nor if they were “real shooting”.
Le Monde with AFP
The maneuvers had to end on Sunday, but the Chinese army announced on Monday August 8, that it was continuing its military exercises near Taiwan. “The People’s Liberation Army (…) continues to conduct joint practical exercises in the maritime and air space around Taiwan, focusing on joint anti-sous-marine and assault operations,” said The command of the operating theater is. He did not specify in which areas these maneuvers take place, nor if they are “real shooting”.
China had indicated that it intended to perform new exercises “real shooting” until August 15 in the yellow sea, which separates China from the Korean peninsula.
The army Chinese close to the Taiwanese coast
Beijing launched the largest maneuvers never made around the island after the visit to Taipei of the president of the House of Representatives of the United States, Nancy Pelosi on Thursday. The Chinese army has sent fighter planes, warships, ballistic drones and missiles in what analysts consider as a simulation of blockade and invasion of the island.
The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense has counted Sunday sixty-six planes and fourteen ships operating in the strait that separates the continental China from Taiwan, twenty-two of which crossed the midline that cuts this maritime space.
To prove how much she had approached the Taiwanese coasts, the Chinese army broadcast this weekend a photo taken according to her from one of her warships, where we see a building From the Taiwanese navy just a few hundred meters away. This snapshot could be closest to the Taiwanese coast never taken by the forces of continental China. China also sent a drone flying over Taiwanese island in Kinmen, located about ten kilometers from the Chinese city of Xiamen, forcing the Taiwanese army to draw lining rockets, according to local authorities.
The Taiwanese Ministry of Transport reported on Sunday noon the return to normal of six of the seven “temporary danger zones” that China had asked the airlines to avoid. “The flights and navigations concerned can resume gradually,” he said.
“Total disproportion” according to the United States
The displacement of Nancy Pelosi, the most important of an American elected official for twenty-five years, has plunged relations between Beijing and Washington at the lowest for years. Beijing, who has always considered Taiwan as one of his provinces and interpreted all official visit as tacit recognition of the island’s independence, reacted by suspending a series of Sino-American discussions and cooperation, especially on the climate change and defense. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the “total disproportion” of the Chinese reaction and in particular military maneuvers.
On the Taiwanese side, Prime Minister, Su Tseng-Chang, said on Sunday that China “used military action in a barbaric manner” in order to disturb peace in the Taiwan Strait. “We call on the Chinese government not to brandish its military force, not to show its muscles everywhere to endanger the peace of the region,” he said before the press. The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered it that maneuvers threatened “the region and even the world”.
These exercises also aroused criticism from the G7 diplomatic leaders (United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, United Kingdom), who had estimated that there was “no justification “To these” aggressive “military maneuvers.