The Chinese military plans to launch a large-scale exercise on an island off of Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait, a lawmaker quoted Chief of General Staff General Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) as saying yesterday.
People First Party lawmaker Lee Ching-hua (
The location for the large-scale exercise is Dongshan Island, the site of a large-scale amphibious landing drill by the Chinese military during the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis.
Lee told the media that according to Tang, the exercise to be launched on Dongshan and the one which is currently underway are routine exercises and are not specifically targeted at Taiwan.
The Ministry of National Defense dismissed the possibility that the Dongshan exercise or the one currently underway had anything to do with President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) much-publicized transit stay in the US.
An official with the ministry said the exercise is likely routine in nature since this time of year is typically the training season for China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).
"According to past experience, the PLA always launches its training exercises between April and October," the official said.
"The public should not panic about the exercises. We cannot find any reason why [China] should take any provocative action toward Taiwan at this moment," the official said.
The PLA used to launch exercises directed toward Taiwan only if Taiwan did something which greatly irked Beijing, he said.
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