China has announced the successful completion of three days of war games around Taiwan, which included simulated targeted strikes and a blockade of the self-ruled island. The exercises were in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week, an encounter that Beijing had warned would provoke strong countermeasures. The Chinese military said it had “successfully completed” tasks related to its “Joint Sword” drills, which comprehensively tested the integrated joint combat ability of multiple military branches under actual combat conditions. The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Command said in a statement that troops were “ready for battle and can fight at any time, and will resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism and foreign interference attempts”.
During the war games, Beijing simulated targeted strikes on Taiwan and encirclement of the island, including “sealing” it off, and a state media report said dozens of planes had practised an “aerial blockade”. One of China’s two aircraft carriers, the Shandong, also participated in the exercise. The United States sent the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer through contested parts of the South China Sea in response. China immediately condemned the move, saying the vessel had “illegally intruded” into its territorial waters.
Taiwan and China split at the end of a civil war in 1949. China views the democratic island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it one day. The United States has been deliberately ambiguous on whether it would defend Taiwan militarily. However, for decades it has sold weapons to Taipei to help ensure its self-defence and offered political support. Tsai met McCarthy outside Los Angeles on her way home from a visit with two allied countries in Central America.
Tsai responded to the drills by pledging to work with “the US and other like-minded countries” in the face of “continued authoritarian expansionism”. Monday’s exercises were to include live-fire drills off the rocky coast of China’s Fujian province, about 80 kilometres south of the Matsu islands and 190 kilometres from Taipei, maritime authorities said on Saturday.
