Taiwan’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that China is using military exercises to rehearse an invasion of the self-governing island democracy, while Taiwan’s military began its own live-fire drills in a show of readiness to thwart a possible attack.
Joseph Wu said Beijing aims to establish its dominance in the Western Pacific and annex Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. That would include controlling the East and South China Seas across the Taiwan Strait and preventing the United States and its allies from aiding Taiwan, he told a news conference in Taipei.
China says its drills were prompted by last week’s visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Wu said China was using her trip as a pretext to intimidate the movements that have been underway for a long time.
China also banned some Taiwanese food imports after the visit and cut dialogue with the US on a range of issues from military contacts to fighting transnational crime and climate change.
The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in deference to Beijing, but is legally bound to ensure that the island can defend itself and to treat all threats against it, including the blockade, as matters of grave concern. That leaves open the question of whether Washington would send forces if China attacked Taiwan.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the United States was bound to do so, in comments his staff quickly walked back.
The drills show China’s “geostrategic ambition beyond Taiwan,” Wu said. “China has no right to interfere or disrupt” the Taiwanese people’s democratic process or interaction with other nations, he said, adding that Taiwan and the mainland are separate jurisdictions and “neither is subordinate to the other.”
Since Thursday, China has sent military ships and aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait and launched missiles into the waters surrounding the island.
Ignoring calls to calm tensions, Beijing has extended exercises that amount to a blockade without announcing when they will end. The drills have disrupted flights and shipping in one of the busiest areas for global trade.
Taiwan has put its forces on alert, but has so far refrained from taking active response measures. On Tuesday, its military conducted live-fire artillery drills in Pingtung County on its southeast coast.
The military will continue to train and build up strength to deal with the threat from China, said Major General Lou Woei-jye, spokesman for Taiwan’s 8th Army Command. “Whatever the situation … this is the best way to defend our country.”
A visitor from the nearby port city of Kaohsiung said the exercises were necessary to “let China know we are ready”. “I hope both sides can exercise restraint. Waging a war is not good for ordinary people,” said the man, who gave only his surname Chen.
Taiwan, a former Japanese colony with only loose connections to imperial China, broke away from the mainland amid civil war in 1949. Despite never having ruled the island, the Chinese Communist Party regards it as its own territory and has tried to isolate it diplomatically and economically. in addition to increasing military threats.
Taiwan is a crucial supplier of computer chips to the global economy, including China’s high-tech sectors. A prolonged crisis in the Taiwan Strait, an important thoroughfare for global trade, could have major implications for international supply chains at a time when the world faces disruption and uncertainty.