In major military exercise, China simulates sealing off Taiwan’s ports
China employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday, simulating the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials said.
China’s Defence Ministry said the drills were a response to the Taiwanese president’s refusal to accept Beijing’s demand that self-governed Taiwan acknowledge itself as a part of the People’s Republic of China under the rule of the Communist Party.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said 90 of the aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones, were spotted within Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. The single-day record counted aircraft from 5:02 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time. Shipping traffic was operating as normal, the ministry said.
The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”
“Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately,” Joseph Wu, secretary general of Taiwan’s security council, said at a forum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. “Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”
‘Stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy’
Taiwan’s Presidential Office called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
A map aired on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed six large blocks encircling Taiwan indicating where the military drills were being held, along with circles drawn around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said the six areas focused on key strategic locations around and on the island.
China deployed its Liaoning aircraft carrier for the drills, and CCTV showed a J-15 fighter jet taking off from the deck of the carrier, though the exact location of the ship is unclear.
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China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command spokesperson Senior Captain Li Xi said the navy, army air force and missile corps were all mobilized for the drills, which were an integrated operation.
“This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that China did not consider relations with Taiwan a diplomatic issue, in keeping with its refusal to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
“I can tell you that Taiwan independence is as incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait as fire with water. Provocation by the Taiwan independence forces will surely be met with countermeasures,” Mao said.
‘I am used to it’
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it deployed warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready. It also deployed mobile missile and radar groups on land to track the vessels at sea. It said as of Monday morning, they had tracked 25 Chinese warplanes and seven warships and four Chinese government ships, though it did not specify what types of ships they were.
On the streets of Taipei, residents were undeterred. “I don’t worry, I don’t panic either, it doesn’t have any impact to me,” Chang Chia-rui said.
Another Taipei resident, Jeff Huang, said: “Taiwan is very stable now, and I am used to China’s military exercises. I have been threatened by this kind of threats since I was a child, and I am used to it.”
The U.S., Taiwan’s biggest unofficial ally, called China’s response to Lai’s speech unwarranted. “We call on [Beijing’s government] to act with restraint and to avoid any further actions that may undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
China held similar large-scale exercises after Lai was inaugurated in May. Lai continues the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China.
Also on Monday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced it was sanctioning two Taiwanese individuals, Puma Shen and Robert Tsao, for promoting Taiwanese independence. Shen is the co-founder of the Kuma Academy, a nonprofit group that trains civilians on wartime readiness. Tsao donated $32.8 million US to fund the academy’s training courses. Shen and Tsao are forbidden to travel to China, including Hong Kong.
China also held massive military exercises around Taiwan and simulated a blockade in 2022 after a visit to the island by Nancy Pelosi, who was then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability. China’s military has increased its encircling of Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of the Second World War. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated them in a civil war and took power.
Published at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 10:21:22 +0000
Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon must stop, EU says
The European Union on Monday condemned attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected allegations that UN Secretary General António Guterres is responsible for obstructing the Israeli army.
Sixteen European Union countries contribute to the 10,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, who have been patrolling the border area between Lebanon and Israel for nearly 50 years.
Israel is demanding that they leave the area.
International criticism is growing after Israeli forces repeatedly fired on peacekeepers since the start of its ground operation in Lebanon two weeks ago. Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions in recent days, with most of them blamed on Israeli forces.
‘It’s completely unacceptable’
Relations had already worsened between Israel and the United Nations over the way Israel has conducted its fighting against Hamas in Gaza.
Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel in Gaza in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Over 42,000 Palestinians have been reported killed in the offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
In an unprecedented move, Israel earlier this month said the UN secretary general was persona non grata in Israel.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said UNIFIL’s “work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”
Speaking in Luxembourg before chairing talks between EU foreign ministers, Borrell underlined that the UN Security Council decides whether UNIFIL should be moved, “so stop blaming secretary Guterres.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate the area, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. In a video addressed to Guterres, who has been banned from entering Israel, Netanyahu told the UN chief “to get [UNIFIL] out of the danger zone.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose country is one of Europe’s strongest backers of Israel, said the attacks are “simply unacceptable” and UNIFIL will not be leaving.
“No, they will not withdraw. Yes, they will continue to fulfil the mandate. And yes, we demand on each and every party to respect this mandate, and respect the security and safety of our blue helmets,” he told reporters.
Ireland accuses Israel of working to undermine UN
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.
Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases, Martin said “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”
“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations, and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.
“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.
Two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured on Friday after two explosions near a watchtower in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL said. This followed two earlier injuries of peacekeepers after Israeli soldiers fired on UN positions on Wednesday and Thursday. France, Italy and UN Secretary General António Guterres have condemned the attacks. The Israeli military said it is conducting a review of the incident.
Martin added “Israel is essentially now undermining [not only] the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules-based international order, and it needs to step back.”
He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what’s right and proper and moral in terms of humanity.”
A spokesperson for Germany’s Foreign Office told reporters in Berlin on Monday that “all parties to the conflict, including the Israeli army, are obliged to direct their combat operations exclusively against military targets of the other party to the conflict.” Sebastian Fischer said a comprehensive investigation is expected and talks on the matter were being held with the Israeli side.
Published at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:50:04 +0000
