Highest tension: China conducts military exercises in response to President Tsai's visit to the United States

China began

on Saturday

, including rehearsing a "total siege" of the island, in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen's visit to the United States.

The exercises, announced by the Chinese Army, included the deployment of "rockets, conventional missiles, ships and planes," the state CCTV network reported.

The maneuvers focused on "testing the forces' ability to achieve control of the sea, air and information" under the "support of the unified command system" to "create a repressive situation in which the

in all four directions."

China's announcement came after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Shortly after the controversial meeting, Beijing warned that it would take "firm and effective measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Tsai Ing-wen arrived in Taiwan on Friday after an official visit to Central America and a stopover in California, where she met with McCarthy.

China had announced the imposition of sanctions on Taiwan's representative to the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim, considering that US support for the island's independence agenda had been requested.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry

, describing it as "

that endangers regional security and stability."

In addition, he specified in his official account on the social network Twitter that he ordered his aircraft, ships and missile systems to

Air Force personnel load missiles to arm a Mirage 2000 fighter jet inside Hsinchu Air Base, Taiwan.

Photo: EFE

Meanwhile, the Ministry reported the incursion of 42 Chinese military aircraft into the Taiwan Air Identification Zone, of which 29 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which has functioned for decades as an unofficial border but tacitly respected by China and Taiwan.

The situation is reminiscent of what happened in August 2022, when the visit to Taiwan of the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, enraged Beijing, which responded with military maneuvers around the island to a trip that it described as a "sham " and "deplorable treason".

The Chinese maneuvers began hours after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, left China after a three-day official visit in which he arrived accompanied by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and in which both dealt with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the war in Ukraine.

Beijing has considered Taiwan a rogue province since Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war to the communist army.

With information from EFE

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