Monday this week, China declared “successfully” completing three days of war games around Taiwan, capping a show of force that saw it simulate targeted strikes and practice a blockade of the self-ruled island.
China’s exercises were a response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week, an encounter it had warned would provoke strong countermeasures.
Tsai met McCarthy outside Los Angeles on her way home from a visit with two allied countries in Central America.
In August last year, China deployed warships, missiles and fighter jets around Taiwan in its largest show of force in years following a trip to the island by McCarthy’s predecessor Nancy Pelosi.
Tsai meeting with McCarthy in the United States, rather than in Taiwan, has been viewed by diplomatic and military observers as a compromise that would underscore support for the island but avoid inflaming tensions with Beijing.
After three days of exercises, the Chinese military said it had “successfully completed” tasks related to its “Joint Sword” drills which the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Command said “comprehensively tested the integrated joint combat ability of multiple military branches under actual combat conditions.”
PLA’s statement said troops were “ready for battle and can fight at any time, and will resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism and foreign interference attempts.”
The war games saw Beijing simulate targeted strikes on Taiwan and encirclement of the island, including “sealing” it off, and a state media report said dozens of planes had practiced an “aerial blockade.”
One of China’s two aircraft carriers–the Shandong–also “participated in the exercise,” the military said.
The United States, which had repeatedly called for China to show restraint, on Monday sent the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer through contested parts of the South China Sea.
“This freedom of navigation operation upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea,” the US Navy said in a statement.
It added the vessel had passed near the Spratly Islands–an archipelago claimed by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. It is about 1,300 kilometers from Taiwan.
The deployment of the Milius immediately triggered a condemnation from China, which said the vessel had “illegally intruded” into its territorial waters.
Separately, Beijing warned that Taiwanese independence and cross-strait peace were “mutually exclusive,” blaming Taipei and unnamed “foreign forces” supporting it for the tensions.
Close Chinese ally Russia defended the drills, with a Kremlin spokesperson saying Beijing had a “sovereign right” to respond to what Moscow called “provocative acts.”
China and Taiwan split at the end of a civil war in 1949. China views the democratic island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it one day.
The United States has been deliberately cryptic on whether it would defend Taiwan militarily.
But for decades it has sold weapons to Taipei to help ensure its self-defense and offered political support.
In the meanwhile, capillary waves are causing pins and needles in the Sea of Japan, the East Sea, the Luzon Strait, which connects the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea.
