Taiwan’s armed forces issued an alert, sent air and naval patrols around the island and activated ground-based missile systems in response to the Chinese drills, the Ministry of National Defense said. As of 5 p.m. local time, 20 Chinese aircraft and 14 ships continued to conduct naval and air exercises around the Taiwan Strait, it said. The ministry said the zones China declared as no-go areas during drills for other ships and aircraft had “seriously harmed peace”. He stressed that Taiwan’s military does not seek war, but will prepare and respond accordingly. China’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday that it conducted military drills as planned at sea and in the airspace in the north, southwest and east of Taiwan, focusing on “testing the capabilities” of land attack and sea attack. systems. China launched live-fire military drills after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier this week, saying her visit violated its “one China” policy. China sees the island as a breakaway province that will be annexed by force if necessary, and sees visits by foreign officials to Taiwan as recognition of its sovereignty.
4 drones detected
Taiwan’s military also said it spotted four unmanned aerial vehicles flying in the area of the offshore Kinmen County on Friday night and fired warning flares in response. The four drones, which Taiwan believed to be Chinese, were spotted over the waters around the Kinmen island complex and nearby Lieyu Island and Beiding Islet, according to Taiwan’s Kinmen Defense Command. Taiwan Air Force Mirage fighter jets taxi on a runway at an air base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Friday. (Johnson Lai/The Associated Press) “Our government and military are closely monitoring China’s military exercises and information warfare operations, ready to respond if necessary,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen tweeted. “I call on the international community to support democratic Taiwan and stop any escalation of the regional security situation,” he added. Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, is a group of islands administered by Taiwan. The islands are located about 10 kilometers east of the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province.
Practices are expected until Sunday
Chinese military exercises began on Thursday and are expected to last until Sunday. So far, the drills have included missile attacks on targets in the seas north and south of the island in the wake of the last major Chinese military exercises in 1995 and 1996 aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s leaders and voters. WATCHES | China condemns G7 states for statement on Taiwan:
China condemns G7 states for statement on Taiwan
China condemned all G7 nations, including Canada, after the Group of Seven expressed concern over Beijing’s live-fire drills near Taiwan. Taiwan has put its military on alert and organized civil defense drills, while the US has numerous navies in the region. The Biden administration and Pelosi have said the US remains committed to a “one China” policy, which recognizes Beijing as the government of China but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. The administration discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from visiting. China also suspended defense talks with the US and imposed sanctions on Pelosi in retaliation for the visit. Pelosi has long been an advocate for human rights in China. She, along with other lawmakers, visited Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1991 to support democracy two years after a bloody military crackdown on protesters in the square. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Saturday that China’s latest actions in Taiwan show that Beijing is moving away from the practice of resolving issues peacefully, towards coercion and the use of force. At a press conference in Manila with his Philippine counterpart, Blinken also chided China for other retaliatory actions, including pulling out of climate change talks. He said the United States will work to ensure that channels of communication remain open to prevent miscommunication. Meanwhile, cyberattacks aimed at taking down Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry website doubled from Thursday to Friday, compared with similar attacks before Pelosi’s visit, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The ministry did not specify the origin of the attack. Other ministries and government agencies, such as the Home Office, also faced similar attacks on their websites, according to the report. A distributed denial of service attack aims to overload a website with requests for information that eventually crash it, making it inaccessible to other users.
