Taipei 5 August : Taiwan’s Defence Ministry on Friday said that Chinese warships and planes conducted military exercises in the waters around the island, as tensions grew in the region due to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit earlier this week. In an announcement released by the Ministry declared the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces crossed the median linethe midpoint between mainland and island China — in an act that it described as an “highly controversial act” according to CNN.
The line was previously an informal, but generally accepted boundary of the control zone between Beijing and Taipei.
Taiwan’s military responded with radio alerts and placed military forces in the air, naval vessels and missile systems that are based on shores on alert the Ministry added.
In a statement on Friday, Taiwan’s Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang stated that Taiwan symbolized “freedom and democracy” and that “the evil neighbor next door has flexed its muscles at our door and arbitrarily abducted (one of) the busiest waterways in the world with military exercises”.
The waters and skies around Taiwan have been a focus point as Beijing increases tensions, not just with Taiwan but also with the neighboring Japan who made an official protest with China after five projectiles were spotted in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The missiles were one of the many that were launched by Beijing Thursday, a few of that flew over Taiwan as Pelosi headed to Tokyo where she got to meet Japanese PM Fumio Kishida last Friday, CNN reported.
China has fired missiles into the waters around Taiwan which is a democratically-governed island of 24 million people that is considered by the Chinese Communist Party regards as its territory, even though it has never ruled it, notably in the Taiwan Strait Crisis in the 1990s.
However, the missiles that flew over the island signaled an important increase, with US officials warning that there could be more to be seen.
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