China announces drills around Taiwan after US Speaker meeting
China announces drills around Taiwan after US Speaker meeting
China will hold three days of military exercises around Taiwan from Saturday, the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command announced.
CCP reacts to house speaker Kevin McCarthy in Taiwan
The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command made the announcement the day after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a trip to the United States. China will conduct three days of military drills around Taiwan beginning on Saturday.
China conducts military exercises near Taiwan
China added in a brief statement without providing additional information that it would conduct "combat readiness patrols" and exercises "as planned" in the area of the Taiwan Strait, to the north, south, and east of Taiwan.
Tsai met with Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday in Los Angeles, upsetting Beijing, which sees Taiwan as its own territory.
Although Taiwan's defense ministry reported on Saturday morning that it had spotted four Chinese aircraft in Taiwan's air defense zone in the previous 24 hours—not an unusual number—there was no immediate response from the Taiwanese government.
Later on Saturday, Tsai will meet with a delegation of American lawmakers, led by Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
China had threatened unspecified retaliation
The government has "a strong ability to thwart any form of Taiwan independence secession," according to a commentary published on Saturday in the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party.
The Chinese government's actions to defend the territorial integrity and national sovereignty were all justified by law, according to the statement.
Tsai, who vehemently disputes Beijing's claims to sovereignty, has repeatedly offered to hold talks with China but has received no response because the administration regards her as a secessionist. She claims that the future of Taiwan rests solely with its people.
If the meeting happened, China had threatened vague retaliation. After Nancy Pelosi, the then-House Speaker, visited Taipei in August, Beijing held war games there that included live missile launches.
China has not yet indicated whether it will conduct missile drills, unlike in August. Then, concurrent with the announcement of the drills, China published a map indicating which maritime regions close to Taiwan it would be firing into.
Given that the McCarthy meeting took place in the United States, Taiwanese officials had anticipated a milder response, but they had also stated that they could not completely rule out the possibility that China would stage additional drills.
After meeting with senior leaders, including President Xi Jinping, and leaving China hours later, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Beijing to reason with Russia regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Union, who is in China this week to meet with Xi, agreed that maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait was of utmost importance.
According to the official Chinese interpretation of the meeting, Xi retorted that expecting China to make concessions on Taiwan was "wishful thinking."
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This article originally appeared in China announces drills around Taiwan after US Speaker meeting
Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Writing and additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Diane Craft and William Mallard
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