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China held military exercises around Taiwan for a second day on Wednesday, sending warships and fighter planes near the island in what Beijing said was a warning to its president, Lai Ching-te, after he called China a “foreign hostile force.”
The second day of exercises would focus on the Chinese military’s abilities to control and seal off seas and skies around Taiwan, Senior Col. Shi Yi, a spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army regional command that oversees Taiwan, said in a statement. Senior Colonel Shi also said that in the East China Sea — farther from Taiwan — Chinese forces held live-fire long-distance strikes on “simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities.”
Chinese officials have said that the display of military might was prompted by a speech that Mr. Lai gave on March 13, in which he called China a “foreign hostile force” and laid out 17 measures that he said would combat deepening Chinese subversion and spying in Taiwan. Those included restoring military tribunals to hear cases against military personnel accused of spying.
On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense tallied the Chinese military weaponry that had approached Taiwan by early afternoon on the first day of the exercises: 71 sorties by military aircraft, including drones, and 21 navy ships ranged around the island, including a group accompanying the Shandong aircraft carrier that was about 220 nautical miles east of Taiwan.
None of the Chinese ships or planes crossed a boundary of 24 nautical miles around Taiwan, ministry officials told reporters on Tuesday. The Chinese Coast Guard also announced that it had sent ships on “law enforcement” patrol around two groups of islands controlled by Taiwan.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, and officials describe Mr. Lai as an independence activist fundamentally opposed to their goals.
Maj. Gen. Meng Xiangqing, a Chinese military scholar who often serves as a spokesman, said that the exercises were intended to warn Taiwan of the risks and costs of a real blockade. “A joint blockade would use our big weaponry to stop Taiwan independence separatists from escaping, and prevent outside assistance from entering” the island, he said in a video on China’s main military news website. “If Taiwan loses its sea supply lines, its domestic resources will be quickly exhausted, and its social order will descend into chaos.”
But despite Beijing’s fiery language and sizable military display, experts said that the exercises appeared intended to intimidate Taiwan without tipping over into a wider confrontation. Mr. Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party deny that Taiwan is a part of China — a key premise of Beijing’s claim that the island is its territory — and officials in Beijing have already vehemently denounced Mr. Lai’s recent speech.
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