With the deployment of 42 military aircraft, 15 navy ships and 16 coast guard ships, China began two days of military exercises around Taiwan this Thursday, an island rebellious in the Chinese sphere of influence and over which Beijing claims its sovereignty and in which it has never ruled out the use of force to take control. The Taiwanese authorities, for their part, responded by mobilizing their maritime, air and land forces.
(Read here: Taiwan detects 42 Chinese aircraft and 31 ships: the details of the military exercises launched by China around the island)
(See also: Unusual fight in Taiwan’s Parliament: a legislator stole a bill and fled in a hectic session)
The key points of this news
- China began military exercises around the island of Taiwan this Thursday.
- The objective, according to Beijing, is to test the combat capabilities of the Chinese army.
- Taiwanese authorities responded immediately and mobilized their sea, air and land forces.
- China and Taiwan have had an open rivalry for years. Beijing claims sovereignty over this separately governed island since 1949.
- Analysts consider that the military operations are a “simulation” of how China can block Taiwan maritimely if it decides to invade it.
“The exercises could teach the People’s Liberation Army valuable lessons on how to impose a possible ‘quarantine’ or blockade around Taiwan. “Many experts believe that if the Chinese government tries to force Taiwan to accept unification, it could first try to use a ring of military forces to severely restrict air and sea access to the island,” says an editorial note in the newspaper. The New York Times this Thursday.
The red zones demarcate where the Chinese army deployed its troops near Taiwan.
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These maneuvers are a “serious warning” addressed to the “independence supporters” of the island, who will end up “bloodied,” said a spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy, Wang Wenbin.
In fact, military spokesman Li Xi said that the military exercises underway around Taiwan They test the ability of their armed forces to seize power on this self-governing island.
The exercises could teach the People’s Liberation Army valuable lessons on how to impose a possible ‘quarantine’ or blockade around Taiwan
With this blockade, “vital energy imports for Taiwan” can be cut off and “blocked the support that some US allies provide to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” according to the academic.
And, it is worth mentioning, that Taiwan is another of the sagas of antagonism between the United States and China. The island is, in fact, one of the main reasons for friction between the two world powers. The Americans are Taiwan’s main weapons supplier and could defend it in the event of conflict.
Chinese fighter jet deployed in Beijing military exercises.
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“Beijing has seen in Ukraine that a smaller power, with a determination that Taiwan will surely have, can produce a high-cost, protracted war. China could expect serious losses in the attempt. “Amphibious landings are very expensive undertakings,” Rick Fawn, a professor at the University of St. Andrews, in the United Kingdom, and an expert on Eurasian affairs, explains to this newspaper, when questioned about whether an invasion of Chinese troops on Taiwan It is a possible scenario.
The president of Taiwan, Lai Ching-te.
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However, Chieh Chung, a Chinese military analyst at a think tank affiliated with Taiwan’s main nationalist opposition party, believes that “this is an exercise based on several stages of the armed invasion of Taiwan,” including “blockade operations.”
Whatever the scenario, China has been preparing its troops for months. This Thursday’s exercises are, in fact, the fourth military maneuver that Beijing has carried out since 2022, when it carried out the first of these operations in response to the visit of the then speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan, a fact that infuriated Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Beijing carried out two other maneuvers in April and August 2023 in which, it assured“proved the real combat capacity” of the participating troops, although today it covered Taiwan’s peripheral archipelagos for the first time.
In any case, these experts consider that this will not be the only exercise that will take place around Taiwan this year. “I would be surprised if this new exercise was smaller and less threatening than any from last year,” Bishop notes.
Events in this area could have important economic consequences, since 70 percent of the world’s semiconductor production comes from Taiwan and more than 50 percent of freight containers cross the strait that separates this island from mainland China.
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