Taiwan has its own democratic system to counter the ruling party’s autocracy, Taiwan People's Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said today, calling on China to stop using force to intimidate Taiwan amid a new wave of Chinese military drills announced this morning.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command released a series of threatening videos and propaganda this morning, including one showing President William Lai (賴清德) choking former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and locking him in jail.
The videos were posted shortly after the PLA began a series of joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan.
Photo from Weibo
Taiwanese have fought for their freedom, democracy and rule of law, and such coercive and threatening tactics by China would only further alienate Taiwanese, Huang said.
In an interview today with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times), Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the drills are a response to new military strategies recently released by the US, which prioritize deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Whenever the international community shows significant support for Taiwan, China uses military exercises to intimidate the nation, Su said.
With the downfall of He Weidong (何衛東), vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, and disappearance of Eastern Theater Command Director Lin Xiangyang (林向陽), the Chinese military is also using drills to control morale, Su said.
While China has made technological advancements, it still releases old-fashioned wartime propaganda, he said, referencing the cartoon of Lai imprisoning Ko.
Such imagery shows a lack of morals and are likely to backfire, harming Ko in the process, he said.
In response to media requests for a comment on the drills, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) appeared to have taken a softer stance on Beijing.
In a separate statement, the KMT called on “the other side [of the Taiwan Strait] to lay down its arms” amid what it called “spiraling hostility across the two sides” of the Taiwan Strait brought about by the Lai administration's national security measures.
In a news conference today, Democratic Progressive Party spokespeople Justin Wu (吳崢) and Han Ying (韓瑩) condemned China’s military threats against Taiwan, saying they unilaterally undermine regional peace and stability.
They questioned why KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) have recently visited China amid these tensions, accusing the KMT of hypocrisy.
The KMT claims to oppose the Chinese Communist Party, and yet simultaneously aligns with it, even helping China attack Lai, they said.
China released a series of images depicting military drills “advancing” toward Taiwan, blatantly using military intimidation against Taiwanese, Wu said.
These malicious actions show that China is an international “troublemaker” and disrupts regional security, he said.
When Taiwan’s national security is threatened, all political parties have a duty to remain loyal to the nation and protect it, he added.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun and CNA
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