China Continues Military Exercises Around Taiwan

In the conflict around Taiwan, tensions will not abate on Monday. The military exercises that China had started in the middle of last week would end on Sunday.

On Monday, it sounds that those exercises will be continued on Monday. Beijing is thus increasing the pressure on Washington and Taipei.

A new end date has not yet been communicated. On Monday, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian called the manoeuvres a “necessary warning” to the United States and Taiwan. He spoke of an “appropriate” response to their “provocations.” The Americans had “deliberately” created tensions with the visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan last week.

In the days before that visit, Beijing had made it clear several times that it was not set up for such a visit to Taiwan. Taiwan is a renegade province for the Chinese regime, which is why it prefers not to see official contacts from other countries with Taipei.

The Chinese army will practice anti-submarine warfare and attacks at sea on Monday. During the exercises over the past few days, simulation attacks have been carried out on Taiwan and on Japanese and US naval vessels near Taiwan in six major zones around Taiwan.

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From Taipei, the military reported that Chinese planes only made 66 flights on Sunday. In the process, 22 planes crossed the unofficial, but until now, mostly respected centerline in the Taiwan Strait. In addition, 14 warships took part in the manoeuvres in the strait.

Another Chinese drone was spotted over the Taiwanese island of Kinmen, which is just two kilometres from the Chinese coastline. Before last week’s manoeuvres, it had been the 1950s since a Chinese aircraft had flown over the island.