Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
Sam Ye | AFP | Getty Images
Taiwan’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that China is using the military drills it launched to protest a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a plan to prepare for an invasion of the self-ruled island.
Joseph Wu, speaking at a press conference in Taipei, offered no timetable for a possible invasion of Taiwan, which China has claimed as its own.
He said Taiwan would not be intimidated even as the exercises continued, with China often violating the unofficial median line down the Taiwan Strait.
“China has used the drills in its war book to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” Wu said.
“It has been conducting large-scale military exercises and missile launches, as well as cyber attacks, disinformation and economic coercion, in an attempt to weaken public morale in Taiwan.
“Once the exercises are over, China may try to routinize its actions in an attempt to disrupt the long-term status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” Wu said.
Such moves threaten regional security and provide “a clear picture of China’s geostrategic ambitions beyond Taiwan,” Wu said, calling for greater international support to stop China from effectively controlling the strait.
A Pentagon official said Monday that Washington is sticking to its assessment that China will not try to invade Taiwan in the next two years.
Wu spoke as military tensions boiled over after the scheduled end on Sunday of four days of China’s biggest exercises around the island – drills that included ballistic missile launches and simulated naval and air attacks in the skies and seas around Taiwan.
China’s Eastern Theater Command announced on Monday that it will hold new joint exercises focusing on anti-submarine warfare and maritime attack operations – confirming concerns by some security analysts and diplomats that Beijing will continue to pressure Taiwan’s defenses.
On Tuesday, the command said it was continuing to conduct military drills and exercises in the seas and airspace around Taiwan, with an emphasis on blockades and supply logistics.
A person familiar with security planning in the areas around Taiwan described to Reuters on Tuesday an ongoing “standoff” around the middle line involving about 10 warships each from China and Taiwan.
“China continued to try to push the middle line,” the person said.
“Taiwanese forces there are trying to keep international waterways open.”
Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that China’s ongoing military exercises “underscore that its threat of force has not abated”.
Since Pelosi left the region last Friday, China has also dropped some lines of communication with the United States, including theater-level military talks and discussions on climate change.
Taiwan began its own long-planned drills on Tuesday, firing howitzer artillery into the sea in the southern county of Pingtung, drawing a small crowd of curious onlookers to a nearby beach.
US President Joe Biden, in his first public comment on the issue since Pelosi’s visit, said on Monday that he was concerned about China’s actions in the region but was not concerned about Taiwan.
“I’m concerned that they’re moving as much as they can,” Biden told reporters in Delaware, referring to China. “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more than what they’re doing.”
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl also said the U.S. military would continue to conduct voyages through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks.
China has never ruled out taking Taiwan by force, and on Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China was conducting normal military exercises “in our waters” in an open, transparent and professional manner, adding that Taiwan was part of China.
Taiwan rejects China’s claims to sovereignty, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island’s future.
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