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China has begun large-scale military and coastguard exercises around Taiwan, the latest round in Beijing’s escalating campaign to assert its claims of sovereignty and suppress the island nation’s efforts to preserve its de facto independence.
The drills on Tuesday came as Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te seeks to improve military and civilian preparedness for a potential Chinese attack and strengthen society to defend against espionage and other infiltration from China, which last month he called a “hostile foreign force”.
The People’s Liberation Army said naval, air, ground and missile forces were practising “seizing comprehensive control, strikes on sea and land targets and blockade operations”.
The China Coast Guard also announced simultaneous “law enforcement patrols”, which it said would exercise inspecting, intercepting and detaining “unwarranted vessels”.
The PLA sends aircraft and ships into the airspace and waters close to Taiwan almost daily, and routinely holds what it calls combat readiness patrols.
It has also held several rounds of larger drills near Taiwan since Lai took office last May, the latest in mid-March, as Beijing intensifies an intimidation campaign that has been building for several years.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said 71 Chinese military aircraft operated around the island between 7.20am and 3.30pm on Tuesday, 36 of which crossed the Taiwan Strait median line. The ministry registered the presence of 13 Chinese warships during the same period.
The Taiwanese military responded with a snap readiness drill, only the second time it has done so outside its annual training schedule.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong on Monday entered the Taiwanese military’s response zone, a self-declared area extending beyond its territorial waters and airspace where the armed forces monitor and shadow foreign military movements.
Two people briefed on the situation said the Shandong on Tuesday was approaching waters 24 nautical miles off Taiwan’s coast, the closest it has ever been to the Taiwanese mainland.
China’s coastguard called its drills “concrete actions to exercise legitimate jurisdiction and control over the Island in accordance with the one-China principle”. It published a map indicating that at least three flotillas were operating around Taiwan, but Taiwan’s defence ministry said only four Chinese coastguard ships were present in the vicinity.
As of late Tuesday morning, there was no indication that any Chinese coastguard vessels had intercepted, boarded, inspected or detained any ships in the area.
But its moves will be watched closely as any Chinese interference with commercial shipping in the Taiwan Strait or the waters east of the island could raise fears of disruption to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, through which most of east Asia’s energy imports and finished goods exports to Europe are transported.
Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command, which is responsible for operations around Taiwan, called the drills a “severe warning and forceful containment against the separatist forces of ‘Taiwan independence’.”
Lai has taken steps in recent months to strengthen Taiwan’s defence posture, holding the country’s most serious civil defence mobilisation drills in decades and announcing plans to restore military trials in peacetime to counter Chinese infiltration and influence operations.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said China’s escalation of military activity in the region was “challenging the international order and regional stability”, adding that Beijing was “becoming the greatest ‘troublemaker’ in the eyes of the international community”.
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The American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy in the country, said Washington would “continue to support Taiwan in the face of China’s military, economic, informational, and diplomatic pressure campaign”.
The US is the only country that actively supports Taiwan’s security, though President Donald Trump has accused Taipei of freeriding on America’s defence umbrella and “stealing” the US semiconductor sector.
“Once again, China has shown that it is not a responsible actor and has no problem putting the region’s security and prosperity at risk,” the institute said in a statement. “There is no justification for China’s irresponsible threats and military pressure operations near Taiwan.”
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