China held multiple military exercises during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) tenure, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) said yesterday, after Ma’s office implied that Beijing conducted no drills during the former president’s tenure.
On Wednesday, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation chief executive Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) slammed the DPP government’s handling of Beijing by asking reporters: “What military exercises were there during the Ma administration?”
In response, Lin in a Facebook post said that Ma’s office had “lied to us with a straight face” by implying China had friendlier intentions for Taiwan during Ma’s time in office.
Photo: Greg Baker, AFP
Counting only the officially acknowledged ones, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held five major military exercises in 2014, she said.
These were the Jin Dun Long Pan (金盾龍盤), Yun Hai (雲海) and Kua Yue (跨越) drills, the Russo-Chinese Joint Sea exercise and that year’s iteration of the annual Joint Operation exercise, Lin said.
In 2015, then-president Ma told the BBC that he was displeased with a PLA military exercise featuring an assault on an apparent mock-up of the Presidential Office, she said.
“Pan-blue and white lawmakers have repeatedly obstructed Taiwan’s national security-related bills in the legislature,” she said, referring to the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party. “The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is rushing to pledge loyalty to China.”
Later yesterday, Hsiao defended his comments in a BCC News radio program, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had told Ma during their 2015 summit in Singapore that the PLA drills were not intended to target Taiwan.
Lin said the public should not lend credence to denials from Xi or Ma’s office, as one of the Chinese military exercises demonstrably simulated the decapitation of Taiwan’s leadership headed by Ma.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said dangling get-rich-fast schemes before their marks is a scammer tactic and the KMT has fallen for it.
The KMT’s attempt to rationalize Chinese aggression showed Ma and people like him put their faith in Xi and not Taiwan, he added.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
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