The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said that live-fire Chinese drills in a province facing Taiwan are part of routine annual drills, but also possibly part of China’s “deterrence effect” in the waters of the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration, in a notice late on Monday, said an area around Niushan Island in China’s Fujian Province would be closed off for four hours from 9am yesterday for live-fire drills.
Niushan sits just south of the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands.
Photo: screen grab from Google Maps
The ministry in a statement said that the exercises are part of routine Chinese training and it was keeping a close watch, but it could not rule out that it was part of China “expanding its deterrent effect in conjunction with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait.”
It did not elaborate.
China last week held a day of war games around Taiwan that it said were a warning against “separatist acts.”
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said that China should not be carrying out any such exercises given the threat to regional peace and stability.
“No matter how large the scale of the drill, they should not be frequent and close to Taiwan,” Cho said. “This will only cause unnecessary tension.”
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), a co-convener of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, said although the drill was some distance from Taiwan proper and therefore only posed a limited physical threat, it might have been intended as a blow to the nation’s morale.
The nation’s armed forces should take the exercise seriously and be on guard to deal with Beijing’s challenge up to and including the worst-case scenarion, he said.
DPP caucus deputy chief executive Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said the move indicated that China could be ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan by conducting military exercises and coast guard patrols on a weekly basis.
“The information we received shows no cause for alarm and little chance of mishaps,” Hung said. “The nation’s armed forces are well-prepared.”
Beijing should exercise restraint as its behavior has only increased Taiwanese anger and shown itself to be the region’s biggest troublemaker, he said.
Taiwan would not bow to “gray zone” activities, become accustomed to aggressive acts or concede the nation’s legal territories, he added.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) said that the live-fire drills are being staged as a warning to the US and Taiwanese refuse to be treated as a target in other parties’ conflict.
The KMT calls on China to cease conducting drills in Taiwan’s environs as such acts provoke Taiwanese antipathy toward Beijing that negatively impacts cross-strait relations, he said.
The party also urged the DPP administration to issue a coherent message about China’s actions, he said, citing Representative to the US Alexander Yui’s (俞大?) remarks that the nation is ready to fight.
Yui should know he has no right to represent Taiwanese and only President William Lai (賴清德) has the right to make such utterances, he added.
Chen Kuan-hsien (陳冠憲), a researcher at the Taiwan National Security Association, said that numbing Taiwan could be part of China’s strategy.
China’s military activities make most Taiwanese feel pressured, angry or humiliated, but some have become indifferent, which might be the effect Beijing is trying to achieve, Chen said.
The China Coast Guard’s social media post on last week’s Joint Sword-2024B military exercises, which allegedly formed a heart shape around Taiwan proper, was part of Beijing’s strategy to undermine the nation’s civil defense program, he said.
Launching coordinated multidomain operations to test Taiwan and the global community is part of China’s continuous effort to evolve its strategy, he said.
Modern conflict is a contest of wills and Taiwan could respond to Beijing’s provocations by demonstrating its readiness to defend itself, he added.
The government should do more to inoculate Taiwanese society against misinformation and foreign meddling by disseminating knowledge about international relations and defense, as psychological defense is a key component in a nation’s defensive capabilities, he said.
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-lin and Fang Wei-li
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