Desk Report
Published: 04 Aug 2022, 05:49 pm
A man stands in front of a screen showing a CCTV news broadcast, featuring a map of locations around Taiwan where Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is conducting military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills at a shopping center in Beijing || Photo: Collected
China
launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan
on Thursday, a day after a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy
Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign
territory.
Soon
after the scheduled start at 0400 GMT, China's state broadcaster CCTV said the
drills had begun and would end at 0400 GMT on Sunday. They would include live
firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding Taiwan, it said.
Two
missiles were launched by China near Taiwan's Matsu islands, which lie off the
coast of China, at around 2 pm local time (0600 GMT) in the direction of drill
zones announced by China, according to an internal Taiwan security report seen
by Reuters and confirmed by a Taiwan security source.
Taiwan
officials have said the drills violate United Nations rules, invade Taiwan's
territorial space and are a direct challenge to free air and sea navigation.
China
is conducting drills on the busiest international waterways and aviation routes
and that is "irresponsible, illegitimate behaviour," Taiwan's ruling
Democratic Progressive Party said.
Taiwan's
cabinet spokesman, expressing serious condemnation of the drills, said also
that websites of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential
office were attacked by hackers.
Chinese
navy ships and military aircraft briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line
several times on Thursday morning, a Taiwanese source briefed on the matter
told Reuters.
By
midday on Thursday, military vessels from both sides remained in the area and in
close proximity.
Taiwan
scrambled jets and deployed missile systems to track multiple Chinese aircraft
crossing the line.
"They
flew in and then flew out, again and again. They continue to harass us,"
the Taiwanese source said.
On
Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified
aircraft, probably drones, flew above the area of Taiwan's outlying Kinmen
islands near the Chinese coast, Taiwan's defence ministry said.
China,
which claims Taiwan as its own territory and reserves the right to take it by
force, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island were an
internal affair.
"Our
punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable,
lawful," China's Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said.
China's
Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Pelosi's visit to Taiwan a "manic,
irresponsible and highly irrational" act by the United States, state
broadcaster CCTV reported.
Wang,
speaking at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, said China had made the utmost diplomatic effort to avert crisis, but
would never allow its core interests to be hurt.
The
foreign ministers in a statement had earlier warned that volatility caused by
tensions in the Taiwan Strait could lead to "miscalculation, serious
confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major
powers".
'COMRADE
PELOSI'
Unusually,
the drills in six areas around Taiwan were announced with a locator map circulated
by China's official Xinhua news agency earlier this week - a factor that for
some analysts and scholars shows the need to play to both domestic and foreign
audiences.
On
Thursday, the top eight trending items on China's Twitter-like Weibo service
were related to Taiwan, with most expressing support for the drills or fury at
Pelosi.
"Let's
reunite the motherland," several users wrote.
In
Beijing, security in the area around the US Embassy remained unusually tight on
Thursday as it has been throughout this week. There were no signs of
significant protests or calls to boycott US products.
"I
think this (Pelosi's visit) is a good thing," said a man surnamed Zhao in
the capital's central business district. "It gives us an opportunity to
surround Taiwan, then to use this opportunity to take Taiwan by force. I think
we should thank Comrade Pelosi."
Pelosi,
the highest-level US visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and
pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese
anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there.
China
summoned the US ambassador in Beijing in protest against her visit and halted
several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
"Our
delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon
Taiwan," Pelosi told Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects
of pushing for formal independence - a red line for China.
"Now,
more than ever, America's solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that's the
message we are bringing here today."
The
United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned
China against using Pelosi's visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said
earlier in the week that Pelosi was within her rights to visit Taiwan, while
stressing that the trip did not constitute a violation of Chinese sovereignty
or America's longstanding "one-China" policy.
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with
Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend
itself.
China views visits by US officials to Taiwan as sending an
encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects
China's sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the
island's future._Reuters