China launches live-fire exercise in Taiwan Strait

A woman walks past a Taiwanese national flag at Maritime Plaza in Keelung on October 22, 2024. Agence France-Presse

BEIJING — China’s military began a live-fire exercise near Taiwan on Tuesday, maintaining pressure on the self-ruled island after staging large-scale drills and President Xi Jinping called for troops to prepare for war.

China’s Communist Party has never ruled the island, but it claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has said it will not renounce the use of force to bring it under its control.

This month it sent planes and warships around the island in what Beijing said was a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”.

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On Monday, the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) in the eastern island of Pingtan announced that “gun firing” would take place in a limited area close to the Chinese mainland, about 105 kilometers (66 miles) from Taiwan.

The MSA said they would start at 9:00 am local time (0100 GMT) and take place for four hours in an area encompassing about 150 square kilometers (60 square miles).

Pingtan is the closest point in mainland China to Taiwan’s main island.

Maritime authorities did not say which Chinese force would carry out the live firing, or its objective.

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In response to the drills, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it was closely monitoring China’s “military activities and intentions”.

Taipei said the exercises could be part of Beijing’s “tactics to bolster its intimidation in conjunction with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait”.

Premier Cho Jung-tai described them as a “threat that undermines regional peace and stability”.

Passing ships

Over the weekend, a US and a Canadian warship passed through the 180-kilometer Taiwan Strait, part of regular passages by Washington and its allies meant to reinforce its status as an international waterway.

Beijing condemned the passage as disrupting “peace and stability” in the strait.

China sent a record number of military aircraft as well as warships and coast guard vessels to encircle Taiwan on October 14 in the fourth round of major drills in just over two years in the area.

Taiwan deployed forces and put outlying islands on heightened alert in response to the exercises.

Beijing has ramped up military pressure on Taipei in recent years, deploying on a near-daily basis warplanes and other military aircraft as well as ships around the island.

Following its “Joint Sword-2024B” exercises, its army vowed never to renounce the use of force to retake the island.

In a visit to a brigade of the Chinese military’s Rocket Force in the wake of those drills, President Xi urged them to strengthen their preparedness for war, state media said.