China’s military carried out war games in the disputed South China Sea this week, with warships, submarines and fighter jets simulating cruise missile strikes on ships, the official People’s Liberation Army Daily said yesterday.
China claims almost all of the waters of the South China Sea, through which more than US$5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year, and in which Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia have overlapping claims.
The US’ Pacific Fleet commander on Monday warned of a possible arms race in the disputed South China Sea that could engulf the region, as nations become increasingly tempted to use military force to settle territorial spats.
In a front-page story, the newspaper said the drill was carried out on Wednesday across “several thousand square kilometers” of waters somewhere in the South China Sea.
The forces were split into two teams, red and blue, as military commanders threw various scenarios at them, including an accidental missile strike on a commercial ship operated by a third party, the paper said.
The warships also simulated deflecting anti-ship missile attacks, and operating in concert with submarines, early warning aircraft and fighter jets, the report added.
“Only by experiencing a variety of difficult situations can one not panic in the midst of war and win,” the paper quoted Li Xiaoyan (李曉岩), deputy chief of staff of the South China Sea fleet and commander of the red team, as saying.
China periodically announces such exercises in the South China Sea, as it tries to demonstrate it is being transparent about its military deployments.
On Sunday last week, the Ministry of National Defense said the navy had recently carried out drills in the South China Sea. It was not clear if the exercises referred to by the newspaper and these drills were the same.
China has been at odds with the US of late over the strategic waterway.
Washington has criticized Beijing’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), saying that the construction poses a threat to freedom of navigation in the area, and has conducted sea and air patrols near them.
Last month, US B-52s flew near some of China’s artificial islands, and at the end of October a US guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of one of them.
China also expressed concern last week about an agreement between the US and Singapore to deploy a US P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to the city-state.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never