China launched
three days of military exercises
around Taiwan on Saturday to pressure its authorities in response to a meeting between the island's president and a senior US official that angered Beijing.
These are some of the elements that are known from the operation called
"Joint Sword".
1.
China has made a large military deployment around Taiwan as "
a serious warning
against collusion between separatist forces seeking 'Taiwan independence' and outside forces," warned a Chinese military spokesman, Shi Yi.
The maneuvers include patrols and
"precision strike simulations"
against "key targets" to "create a total deterrence and encirclement" of the island, according to Chinese state television CCTV.
Amphibious boats off the coast of Taiwan.
AFP photo
The device includes dozens of J-18 and J-10C fighter jets, anti-submarine aircraft, PHL-191 rocket launcher systems and YJ-12B anti-ship land-based missiles, according to the Chinese press.
On Sunday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry
detected 11 Chinese warships and 70 aircraft around the island
, after having sighted as many ships and 71 aircraft the day before.
2.
China considers the island of Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, as
one of its provinces that it has not yet managed to reunify
with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
Beijing
opposes
any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments.
Following a meeting Wednesday in California between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Beijing vowed to hit back harshly.
Taiwanese soldiers in a military exercise.
Photo Reuters
These military maneuvers are part of
a broader campaign of "pressure on Taiwan
," Ja Ian Chong, a professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, told AFP.
In his opinion, "these high-level meetings allow Beijing to place the blame on Taipei, Washington, or others."
3.
China waited for Tsai's return to Taiwan and the end of the Chinese visit by French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to launch the "Joint Sword" operation.
For James Char, an expert on the Chinese military at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore, this shows that China
is trying to "reactivate" relations with Europe.
But a military operation against Taiwan "will be detrimental to this diplomatic opening," he warns.
4.
These exercises are reminiscent of those that took place
in August 2022 in response to the visit to the island of Nancy Pelos
i, McCarthy's predecessor at the head of the House of Representatives, the second US authority in the line of presidential succession.
Beijing carried out live-fire exercises ten kilometers off the Taiwanese coast in a similar week-long campaign to encircle the island.
This time, China announced live-firing exercises off the coast of Fujian (east), the province facing Taiwan.
However, "Joint Sword" seems
"not to have the same magnitude
as what we saw during Pelosi's visit" to the island -- considered by Beijing as its own territory --, estimates Manoj Kewalramani, an expert on China at Takshashila. Bangalore Institution.
The economic situation after three years of Covid-19 and Taiwan's strategic importance may also have played a role, according to Su Tzu-yun, a military expert with Taiwan's National Defense and Security Research Institute.
"The restoration of Taiwan's air and sea lanes this year is very important for the economic recovery of neighboring countries and China itself, so military exercises
should not be intensified
," he told AFP.
Source: AFP
bp
look also
Conflict escalates: China staged attacks on key targets in Taiwan and its surrounding waters
War in Ukraine: Macron meets with Xi Jinping and asks him to "make Russia see reason"