China is carrying out the second day of an exercise in "total encirclement" of Taiwan on Sunday, maneuvers scheduled until Monday and presented by Beijing as a "serious warning" to the authorities of the island after the meeting of its president with a senior US official.
Called "Joint Sword", the operation was strongly denounced by Taiwan and the United States called on Beijing to "restraint", ensuring that it kept its channels of communication with China "open".
These maneuvers were launched after the meeting Wednesday in California of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, to which Beijing had promised to react with “firm and energetic” measures.
They aim to establish Chinese capabilities to "take control of the sea, airspace and information (...) in order to create deterrence and total encirclement" of Taiwan, Taiwan television said on Saturday. Chinese state.
On Sunday, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense recalled having detected the presence around the island of nine ships and 71 military aircraft the day before. "The army is closely monitoring the situation" and has asked its "planes, ships and land-based missile systems to react accordingly", he added.
Destroyers, fast missile launchers, fighter planes, tankers and jammers are notably mobilized, according to Beijing.
"I'm a little worried, I would be lying to you if I told you otherwise," Donald Ho, 73, told AFP on Sunday, met in a Taipei park. "If there is war, both sides will suffer greatly."
China considers Taiwan (23 million inhabitants) as a province which it has not yet managed to reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
The maneuvers "serve as a serious warning against the collusion between separatist forces seeking Taiwan independence and outside forces, as well as their provocative activities", warned a spokesman for the Chinese army, Shi Yi.
Washington reiterated its call on Saturday "not to change the status quo".
"We are confident that we have sufficient resources and capabilities in the region to ensure peace and stability," the State Department said.
Live-fire exercises will be held Monday in the Taiwan Strait near the coast of Fujian (east), the province facing the island, local Chinese maritime authorities also said.
These exercises, which have an "operational" dimension, are intended to demonstrate that the Chinese army will be ready, "if the provocations intensify", to "settle once and for all the question of Taiwan", indicated to the AFP military expert Song Zhongping.
Ms. Tsai on Saturday denounced China's "authoritarian expansionism" and assured that Taiwan "would continue to work with the United States and other countries (...) to defend the values of freedom and democracy".
China views with displeasure the rapprochement in recent years between the Taiwanese authorities and the United States which, despite the absence of official relations, provides the island with substantial military support.
For Beijing, these military exercises are "a necessity" to "score points politically" with the Chinese population, told AFP James Char, Chinese army expert at the Nanyang University of Technology in Singapore.
However, an escalation of the same intensity as that of August 2022 seems a priori ruled out, according to Mr. Char. Beijing is trying to "warm up" its relations with Europe and waited for the "end" of a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to launch its exercises, he notes.
China last summer engaged in unprecedented military maneuvers around Taiwan and fired missiles in response to a visit to the island by Democrat Nancy Pelosi, then Mr McCarthy's House roost post. .
The United States recognized the People's Republic of China in 1979 and should theoretically have no official contact with the Republic of China (Taiwan) under the "one China principle" championed by Beijing.
09/04/2023 05:29:37 - Beijing (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
