Taiwan conducted a major live-fire military exercise on Thursday with its air, sea and land forces, President Tsai Ing-wen said, showing the island’s determination to defend itself.
The exercises, called “Han Kuang”, are Taiwan’s main annual military exercises. But this year they came when China intensified its military and naval activity around the island, which it considers sovereign territory.
“The Han Kuang exercises are a major annual event for the armed forces, which assess the development of combat skills,” Tsai told troops. The drills started on Monday and conclude on Friday.
“Furthermore, it allows the world to see our determination and efforts to defend the country’s territory.”
Beijing ruled out the military exercises and said China’s territorial integrity was “solid and indestructible,” and that reunification with mainland China was an “irreversible trend” that could not be stopped, Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Thursday. .
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper also called the activity a “pointless spectacle” and an obvious attempt to prepare against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Beijing considers Taiwan part of “one China” and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan, although democratic and autonomous, has long been claimed by China.
In May, during the National People’s Congress of China, Prime Minister Li Keqiang omitted the word “peaceful” from the regular language of China’s reunification with Taiwan, which some analysts took as a sign of China’s increasing assertiveness to reunite Taiwan. with the continental force.
Reunification remains a priority for Beijing, said Veerle Nouwens, a researcher in the Asia-Pacific region of the Royal United Services Institute, a group of defense experts.
“China has continued to exercise at sea and in the air in the South China Sea and around Taiwan,” Nouwens said. “This is not particularly new, but it takes place in a broader context of increasing Chinese assertiveness on its borders and in the surrounding region.”
Around 8,000 people participated in drills, held on a coastal strip near Taichung in central Taiwan. Although the Taiwan Army is well trained and equipped with hardware made primarily in the United States, China has vast numerical superiority.
Tsai, who won reelection for a landslide in January after pledging to take a tough stance on China, has made military modernization a priority. Taiwan posted its largest increase in defense spending in more than a decade last year.
“At the beginning of her new term as president, Tsai needs to be in business … to continue her rather aggressive stance on China,” said Ian Inkster, a professor at the London-based Center for Taiwan Studies.
“The priorities seem to be to retain the Chinese provocative position. Therefore, opportunities will be seized when they are offered,” he said.
Taiwan is a recurring turning point in the relationship between the United States and China, and Beijing routinely denounces Washington’s support for the island, amid what China perceives as increased US activity in the region.
This week, Beijing announced sanctions against Lockheed Martin, the US arms maker that participated in the latest US arms sale to Taiwan. China was making the move “to safeguard the country’s interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, without elaborating.
Zhao also called on the United States to stop selling arms to Taiwan to “avoid further damaging Sino-American ties and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
The United States, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties to Taiwan, but Washington is required by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged China to reconsider the sanctions, saying that Lockheed Martin was “an American company that did business that was consistent with American foreign policy.”
“I regret that the Chinese Communist Party chose to make that threat against Lockheed Martin,” said Pompeo. “I hope they reconsider and don’t comply.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Ed Flanagan and Dawn Liu contributed
