Taipei 7 August : China continued its large-scale military exercises in Taiwan on the weekend, just a day following the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent an “record amount” of military aircraft and naval vessels to areas around Taiwan according to the Foreign Ministry in Taipei said.Multiple Chinese vessels and aircrafts traversed the non-official, yet so much admired, central line in the 130-km-wide Taiwan Strait separating the island from the mainland, according to the news agency dpa.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Jason Wu tweeted his condemnation of what he described as an “dangerous increase of the threat of military force” which was “wrecking peace and stability in the region and is to be condemned”.
In the course of their military drills the PLA also launched 11 ballistic missiles in Taiwan’s direction.
One of which was directly over Taiwan and flew close to Taiwan’s capital Taipei for the first time, as per reports.
Five more missiles also landed to the east of Taiwan in Japan’s economic zone in an act widely believed to be an appeal to Tokyo to keep away from of the war.
China started the exercises, which are scheduled to run until Sunday in reaction to US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier in the week.
The recent visit of the most powerful US politician from the US to Taiwan in the past 25 years has sparked outrage in Beijing who claims Taiwan as a part of its territory even though the island has been self-governing since 1949.
China then suspended talks with the US on climate protection as well as on specific military issues and also stopped cooperating on issues like the fight against organized drug trafficking, crime and repatriation of illegal immigrants in general.
Furthermore, Beijing imposed unspecified sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family members, accusing them of “seriously interfering in internal affairs”.
