China Issue With Military

 China Dispatches Military Drills Around Taiwan as 'Discipline'

China said the sea and air drills were meant as a “stern warning” to its opponents after Taiwan’s new president asserted the island’s sovereignty in defiance of Beijing.China launched two days of military drills surrounding Taiwan on Thursday in what it called a “strong punishment” to its opponents on the self-governing island, after Taiwan’s new president pledged to defend its sovereignty. 

The drills were the first substantive response by China to the swearing-in of President Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing dislikes, in Taipei on Monday. Mr. Lai’s political party asserts Taiwan’s separate status from China, and in a high-profile inaugural speech, he vowed to keep Taiwan’s democracy safe from Chinese pressure.China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, had mainly responded to Mr. Lai’s speech with sharply worded criticism. But it escalated its response Thursday by announcing that it was conducting sea and air exercises that would encircle Taiwan and draw close to the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin in the Taiwan Strait.

From the start of the exercises until the afternoon, 15 Chinese navy vessels, 16 Chinese coast guard vessels and 42 Chinese military aircraft were detected around Taiwan’s main island and smaller outlying islands, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. Officials at a briefing in Taipei said that so far none of the Chinese aircraft and vessels had entered Taiwan’s territorial waters.“We must express our condemnation for this behavior that damages regional peace and stability,” Sun Li-fang, a spokesman for the Taiwanese ministry, told the briefing.

The last time China held a major drill in multiple locations around Taiwan was in April 2023, after Kevin McCarthy, then the speaker of the House of Representatives, met with the president of Taiwan at the time, Tsai Ing-wen. Beijing opposes such exchanges with the island’s leaders.China conducted the largest of such exercises in recent years in August 2022 to protest the visit to Taiwan of Nancy Pelosi, who was the House speaker at that time. Those drills, which included the firing of Chinese missiles near and over Taiwan, covered six swaths of sea surrounding the island, three of which appeared to overlap with areas that Taiwan regards as its territorial waters. Those exercises lasted four days, and China conducted additional exercises for several days after.

Li Xi, a spokesman of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, said the latest exercises served as “strong punishment” for “Taiwan independence forces,” according to Chinese state media, and “a stern warning against the interference and provocation by external forces,” a reference to the United States.“This could be invaluable experience for a range of operations against Taiwan,” added Ms. Lin, who is the lead author of a study to be published this month on how China could impose a maritime quarantine around Taiwan.

Mr. Lai visited a Taiwanese marine corps brigade near Taipei on Thursday. In his published remarks, he did not mention the Chinese exercises, but sounded a note of defiance.

“At this moment, the international community is paying a great deal of attention to democratic Taiwan,” Mr. Lai said, according to a statement issued by his office. “Faced with external challenges and threats, we will keep defending the values of freedom and democracy.”