China’s military began a live-fire exercise near Taiwan. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

China’s military began a live-fire exercise near Taiwan on Tuesday (October 22, 2024), maintaining pressure on the self-ruled island after staging large-scale drills and President Xi Jinping called for troops to prepare for war.

China’s Communist Party has never ruled the island, but it claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has said it will not renounce the use of force to bring it under its control.

This month it sent planes and warships around the island in what Beijing said was a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”.

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On Monday, the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) in the eastern island of Pingtan announced that “gun firing” would take place in a limited area close to the Chinese mainland, about 105km (66 miles) from Taiwan.

The MSA said they would start at 9:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) and take place for four hours in an area encompassing about 150 sqkm (60 square miles).

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Pingtan is the closest point in mainland China to Taiwan’s main island. Maritime authorities did not say which Chinese force would carry out the live firing, or its objective.

In response to the drills, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it was closely monitoring China’s “military activities and intentions”.

Taipei said the exercises could be part of Beijing’s “tactics to bolster its intimidation in conjunction with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait”.

Premier Cho Jung-tai described them as a “threat that undermines regional peace and stability”.

Passing ships

Over the weekend, a U.S. and a Canadian warship passed through the 180km Taiwan Strait, part of regular passages by Washington and its allies meant to reinforce its status as an international waterway.

Beijing condemned the passage as disrupting “peace and stability” in the strait.

China sent a record number of military aircraft as well as warships and coast guard vessels to encircle Taiwan on October 14 in the fourth round of major drills in just over two years in the area.

Taiwan deployed forces and put outlying islands on heightened alert in response to the exercises.

Beijing has ramped up military pressure on Taipei in recent years, deploying on a near-daily basis warplanes and other military aircraft as well as ships around the island.

Following its “Joint Sword-2024B” exercises, its army vowed never to renounce the use of force to retake the island.

In a visit to a brigade of the Chinese military’s Rocket Force in the wake of those drills, President Xi urged them to strengthen their preparedness for war, state media said.

Thiruvananthapuram:

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday accused the BJP-led Centre of failing to contain the Chinese aggression at the border. Launching an attack on the Narendra Modi-led dispensation, he said, “Unless we stop hoodwinking the people by saying that China has taken nothing and there is no change, the country is in danger of losing a significant amount of territory.”

The Thiruvananthapuram MP said the Chinese aggression issue is not just a map but a much larger problem.

“This cartographic aggression is a way for China to erase certain markers done and when they sense vulnerability, they move according to their idea of the map,” Mr Tharoor said.

He said earlier there were about 65 points where both armies used to patrol along the frontier, and there were no incidents for 45 years.

“Suddenly, on 26 of these points, the Chinese Army comes and establishes permanent positions, which means that our Army, which used to patrol, can no longer patrol,” the Congress leader said.

He claimed Indian shepherds in Ladakh can no longer graze their sheep. 

“Rahul Gandhi, who visited these herders recently, heard it from their own lips. Even a local BJP councilor said the same,” Mr Tharoor claimed.

He said the government has been talking about showing ‘Lal Aankhen’ (Red Eyes) to the Chinese, but there are no red eyes, but only red flags of the neighbour.

He said that it is now of paramount importance that the Congress and the Opposition hold the government’s feet to the fire.

Mr Tharoor said the statement of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar that Beijing had even put out such maps in the past, claiming territories that were not theirs, and that it was “an old habit” of China was not true. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)