Taiwan is facing “authoritarian expansionism” from China, the island’s leader Tsai Ing-wen said on the first day of Beijing’s military exercises across the Taiwan Strait.
“In recent years, we have faced continued authoritarian expansionism,” Tsai stressed, adding that Taiwan “will continue to work with the United States and other countries… to uphold the values of freedom and democracy.”
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had detected eight Chinese warships and 42 fighter jets around the island on the first day of Beijing’s military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
Twenty-nine planes crossed the median line between China and Taiwan, he added, denouncing “irrational actions.”
The Chinese army announced this morning two days of “combat readiness” military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, following the passage of the island’s leader through the United States.
“The eastern theater of operations of the People’s Liberation Army will organize a combat readiness exercise from April 8 to 10 in the Taiwan Strait, in the northern and southern parts of the island, and in the eastern airspace of the island of Taiwan,” said the Chinese. the army said in a statement, without giving an exact location.
These maneuvers will also include “police patrols,” he added.
Beijing had condemned Tsai Ing-wen’s stay in the US on Thursday to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Following the meeting between Tsai and McCarthy, the Chinese government sent warships, a helicopter and a fighter jet into the Taiwan Strait, and announced sanctions against Taiwan’s representative to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, and against the Hudson Institute and the Ronald Reagan Presidential House. Library.
Hours later, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, at a press conference, that “some countries” support “the independence of Taiwan, in the name of democracy” and that “they use the island as a way to contain China “. something she described as “dangerous and doomed.”
“Taiwan’s future lies in reunification, and the well-being of its people depends on the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Mao Ning said, adding that “the differences between the systems on both sides of the strait [de Taiwan] are not an obstacle to reunification”.
Since Tsai came to power in 2016, Chinese authorities have sought to diplomatically isolate the island, home to about 23 million people. Tsai Ing-wen belongs to a party that has traditionally advocated Taiwanese independence, an absolute red line for Beijing.
The island is one of the main sources of tension between China and the US, Taiwan’s main arms supplier.
In 1949 and after the defeat against the Communist Party, in the Chinese civil war, the Nationalist Government took refuge on the island, which maintains, to this day, the official name of the Republic of China, in opposition to the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese mainland.
Beijing considers the island part of its territory and threatens reunification by force if Taipei formally declares its independence.
Source: TSF
