TAIPEI — Taiwan accused the Chinese army of simulating an
attack on its main island Saturday, as
Beijing continued its retaliation for US
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taipei visit.
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Relations between the two superpowers nosedived
following Pelosi’s trip to China’s self-ruled neighbor — which it claims as its
territory — prompting calls from the
UN for an urgent de-escalation of tensions.
Beijing maintained some of its largest-ever military
drills around Taiwan on Saturday — exercises aimed at practicing a blockade and
ultimate invasion of the island, analysts say.
Taipei said it observed “multiple batches” of
Chinese planes and ships operating in the
Taiwan Strait, some of which crossed
a demarcation line that divides the strait, but which Beijing does not
recognize.
“They were judged to be conducting a simulation of
an attack on Taiwan’s main island,” the island’s defense ministry said.
In response, the democratic island’s military
mobilized air and land patrols and deployed land-based missile systems, the
ministry said.
As of 5pm local time (0900 GMT), Taiwan’s army said
“20 Communist planes and 14 ships were detected in the waters around Taiwan
conducting joint air-sea exercises”.
At least 14 of them crossed the median line, it
said, forcing Taipei to scramble patrol planes to ward off the jets.
Taiwan’s army released images on Saturday of a
sailor on one of its frigates monitoring a Chinese ship within touching
distance alongside the caption: “Absolutely not photoshopped!”
It also showed soldiers activating its land-based
missile systems to track the Chinese planes.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meeting with
his Philippine counterpart on Saturday, said Washington was “determined to act
responsibly” to avoid a major global crisis.
The environment became the latest victim of the
geopolitical jousting a day earlier, as Beijing said it would withdraw from a
series of talks and cooperation agreements with Washington — most notably on
climate change and defense cooperation.
China should not hold talks on issues of global
concern such as climate change “hostage”, Blinken said, as it “doesn’t punish
the US, it punishes the world”.
New drills planned
In a bid to show how close
China’s forces have been getting to Taiwan’s shores, Beijing’s military
overnight released a video of an air force pilot filming the island’s coastline
and mountains from his cockpit.
And the Eastern Command of the Chinese army shared a
photo it said was taken of a warship patrolling in seas near Taiwan, the
island’s shoreline clearly visible in the background.
The drills have also seen Beijing fire ballistic
missiles over Taiwan’s capital, according to Chinese state media.
Beijing said it would also hold a live-fire drill in
a southern part of the Yellow Sea — located between
China and the Korean
peninsula — from Saturday until August 15.
Taiwan has remained defiant, insisting it will not
be cowed by what Taipei’s government earlier called its “evil neighbor”.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry told Beijing on Saturday
to “immediately stop raising tensions and taking provocative actions to intimidate
the Taiwanese people”.
The Mainland Affairs Council, Taipei’s highest
policymaking body on China, also condemned the drills after Saturday’s apparent
simulation.
Peace ‘vital’
The scale and intensity of
China’s drills have triggered outrage in the US and other democracies.
Blinken and the foreign ministers of Japan and
Australia issued a joint statement calling on China to halt the exercises after
meeting on the sidelines of an Association of South East Asian Nations summit
in Cambodia.
But Beijing’s decision to withdraw from hard-won
cooperation on climate change has now sparked wider fears about the future of
the planet.
US National Security Council spokesman
John Kirby
told reporters in Washington the decision was “fundamentally irresponsible”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the two
superpowers must continue to work together — for the world’s sake.
“For the
secretary-general, there is no way to solve the most pressing problems of all
the world without an effective dialogue and cooperation between the two
countries,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
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