China extends military exercises near Taiwan with new drill

TAIPEI (Aug 8): China’s military announced a new exercise “near Taiwan” on Monday, signalling that Beijing wanted to keep up pressure on the island past a series of drills announced immediately after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

The People’s Liberation Army practised antisubmarine operations and air-to-sea strikes in the “space near Taiwan Island”, the Eastern Theater Command said in a statement Monday.

The regional military headquarters didn’t specify where the drill was being held or whether it was part of an unprecedented four-day series of exercises around Taiwan that were due to have concluded Sunday.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said it had detected Chinese warplanes and warships around the island Monday, although it wasn’t clear if they were participating in the new drill.

No Chinese warships or planes had entered Taiwan’s airspace or territorial sea during the drills conducted since Pelosi’s visit, the ministry said, despite one of China’s exclusion zones coming within some 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) of the island’s shoreline.

Sun Li-fang, a ministry spokesman, added that the exercises while designed to “hurt Taiwan’s morale” had given the island the chance to do “practical training against combat scenes”.

The developments came after Hu Xijin, a former editor of the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper, said the drills had been extended, without providing details. The PLA said Sunday that it had conducted exercises around Taiwan, with the drills focused on testing the capabilities of joint firepower on long-range air-and-ground strikes.

The drills carried out by China since Pelosi left Taipei on Wednesday have been the most provocative in decades. Besides requiring ships to detour to reach Taiwan’s main ports and repeatedly sending warplanes across the US-drafted median line in the Taiwan Strait, the PLA also likely fired four ballistic missiles over the island of 23 million people.

Beijing denounced the visit by Pelosi as a violation of the US’s pledge 50 years ago not to formally recognise the government of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. China announced on Friday a set of measures including cutting off defence talks with the US, marking a further deterioration in relations between the world’s biggest economies.

Shipping in the Taiwan Strait showed signs of returning to normal Monday, despite a lack of clarity over whether the exercises have ended. More than 30 vessels have transited through China’s drill zone south of Taiwan’s main port since Sunday, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, with the latest ship positions showing four of the total six zones being traversed.

Taiwan’s transportation ministry similarly said that air and marine traffic into the island had gradually begun to return to normal.

Taiwan said Sunday’s drills had again simulated attacks on its main island, as well as Taiwanese ships. China also deployed drones near Taiwan’s outlying islands, the Defense Ministry in Taipei said, adding it responded by sending airplanes and ships while it monitored the situation through surveillance and reconnaissance.

The PLA flew some 66 sorties on Sunday, including 22 that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and the southwest air defence identification zone, the ministry said. Some 14 Chinese warships were detected around the Taiwan Strait as of 5pm local time. Separately, a drone was found approaching the restricted waters of the Kinmen area off China’s coastline and was driven away by flares, Taiwan’s army said.