China will ban shipping in an area north of Taiwan for a few hours on Sunday because of “the possible fall of missile debris,” authorities in China’s Fujian province announced Thursday.
The exclusion zone is located about 100 miles from Taipei, the capital of the island of Taiwan, which lies opposite Fujian province in the southeast of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The area will be closed to all shipping on Sunday between 09:00 and 15:00 local time (01:00 and 07:00 on the same day in Lisbon), Fujian maritime safety authorities said.
During that period, all ships “will be prohibited from entering the exclusion zone”, according to the provincial authorities, quoted by the French agency AFP.
Taiwan’s transport ministry announced on Wednesday that China would establish a no-fly zone in the north of the island on Sunday due to “space activities”.
Taipei’s announcement came after Beijing completed three days of major military maneuvers around Taiwan on Monday, involving simulated attacks and the siege of the island.
The no-fly zone appears to be unrelated to the exercises, with Taipei saying Beijing would set it in “convergence zones of many international routes based on ‘space activities’,” according to AFP.
The air restrictions will last for 27 minutes, from 09:30 to 09:57 local time (01:30 to 01:57 in Lisbon) on Sunday, the Taiwan ministry said.
Beijing had initially announced a three-day closure, but changed plans after objections from Taipei, Taiwan’s transport ministry said.
The military exercises were Beijing’s response to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen meeting with Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles on April 5.
Tsai made a stopover in the United States on her return journey to Taiwan after visiting Belize and Guatemala, two of the 13 countries that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei.
The Beijing regime has regarded Taiwan as a rebel province since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which has still failed to reunite with the rest of PRC territory.
The island, currently home to 23 million people, has since lived autonomously, but Beijing claims sovereignty and threatens to take it by force if it declares independence.
Taiwan has been at the center of disagreements between China and the United States, the island’s main ally and arms supplier.
China is dissatisfied with the rapprochement between the Taiwanese authorities and the United States, despite the lack of formal relations between Taipei and Washington.
Last summer, China launched unprecedented military maneuvers around Taiwan following a visit to the island by Nancy Pelosi, McCarthy’s predecessor in the House of Representatives.
Source: DN
