Tsai Ing-wen, President of Taiwan.
Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Saturday that Taipei would continue to work with the United States and other democracies despite opposition from Beijing.
“Over the past few years, we have faced continued authoritarian expansionism,” Tsai said after meeting with a US congressional delegation in the Taiwanese capital, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. .
“Cooperation between democracies has become even more important. We will continue to work with the United States and other like-minded countries to together uphold the values of freedom and democracy,” she added. McCaul, which oversees all US military sales to foreign countriessaying that Washington was working to quickly supply arms to Taiwan.
“We are doing everything we can in Congress to accelerate these sales (…) not for war, but for peace,” he added.
“An irrational act that endangers security”
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry condemned Beijing’s military exercises around the island, describing them as “an irrational act that endangers regional security and stability.”
And he pointed out in his official account on the social network Twitter that he has ordered his aircraft, his ships and his missile systems to “respond to the activities”.
In addition, the ministry reported the incursion of 42 Chinese military aircraft into the Taiwan Air Identification Zone, of which 29 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Straitwhich has functioned for decades as an unofficial but tacitly respected border between China and Taiwan, a self-governing island whose sovereignty is claimed by Beijing.
In the past two years, Chinese military planes have carried out numerous raids on the Taiwanese ADIZ, intensifying at a time when tensions between the two territories have increased.
The Ministry also alerted the detection of eight Chinese military ships in the vicinity of the island. The island’s armed forces “have closely followed” the situation and “responded accordingly” to “defend the country.”
Rehearsal of encirclement of Taiwan with live fire
The military maneuvers seek to “totally” surround the island, according to Chinese state television. “Today’s exercise focuses on the ability to take control of the sea, airspace and information (…) to create a deterrence and a total encirclement” of Taiwan, CCTV said. According to CCTV, destroyers, fast missile ships, fighters and tankers will be deployed during the maneuvers.
The maritime security authorities of southeast China’s Fujian province, located off Taiwanwarned in two statements that exercises with live fire will take place in the waters near the Chinese coast of said province on the 8th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th and 20th of this month, the local newspaper Global Times reported.
The spokesman for the Theater of Operations, Shi Yi, defined the maneuvers as “a serious warning” against “the provocation of the separatist forces” and a “necessary action to protect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity” of China.
The maneuvers around Taiwan come after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen meet this Wednesday in California with the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
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