Taiwan will not answer China's drills with provocations: Premier
ROC Central News Agency
04/08/2023 07:40 PM
Taipei, April 8 (CNA) Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) on Friday said Taiwan will not respond to China's unspecified "united sword" military drills around Taiwan with provocations, and he called for rationality from Beijing.
Asked to comment on the drills during a visit to Tainan, Chen said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has used President Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) stops in the United States before and after visiting diplomatic allies in Central America as a pretext for holding the drills.
Taiwan's national security organs and the Defense Ministry are on top of the latest situation and have taken precautions with advance deployments, he said.
He urged Beijing to behave rationally, exercise self-restraint, and refrain from carrying out any unnecessary military actions, while warning that China's ongoing military intimidation will make Taiwanese more resolved to pursue freedom and peace in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), meanwhile, voiced a "strong protest" and "sternly condemned" China for disrupting peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan will not cower or act provocatively in its efforts to monitor Chinese military activity in neighboring waters, the MAC said.
Making stopovers in the U.S. is a practice that dates back several years, the MAC said, urging China to take Tsai's stay in the U.S. in stride.
"Neither side of the Taiwan Strait belongs to the other, and that is an objective fact held by the Taiwanese people that no amount of coercion can change," the MAC said.
Separately, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) said in response to the drills that it did not want to see any actions that would negatively affect cross-Taiwan Strait exchanges and disrupt regional peace and stability.
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait should do their best to deescalate tensions to promote peace, the KMT said in a statement.
Just hours after the announcement of the "united sword" drills on Saturday morning, China's state-run CCTV uploaded footage to its website it claimed was captured at the scene of the "united sword drills and combat readiness patrol."
The footage showed PLA destroyers, guided-missile frigates, fighter jets, bombers, tanker aircraft, and electronic warfare aircraft in action, but CCTV was apparently deliberately vague about from which drill the footage was shot.
The purpose of the drills, according to CCTV, was to test the PLA's ability to gain sea, air and information supremacy over Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Alexandar Huang (黃介正), an associate professor at Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the PLA had yet to make clear details related to the "united sword" drills.
The PLA has not yet defined the specific maritime zones in which the drills will be conducted or when the drills begin and end, in contrast to the specific details it gave on week-long drills held around Taiwan in August 2022 following former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit, Huang said.
The 42 Chinese military aircraft and eight naval ships detected in areas around Taiwan on Saturday morning were part of the routine "combat readiness patrol" that has been ongoing since 2020, Huang said.
It remains to be seen whether the PLA will announce details on the "united sword" drills in the coming days or whether the drills will be nothing but a "hollow" claim, he said.
Apart from the "united sword" drills, which the PLA said will be held in the Taiwan Strait and in waters and airspace to the north, south and east of Taiwan, several of China's maritime safety administrations (MSA) have announced live-fire drills and navigation restrictions.
The Fuzhou MSA on Friday announced that it will conduct live-fire artillery drills on April 8, 11, 13, 15 and 17 in Luoyuan Bay north of Fuzhou.
The Dalian MSA on Friday put up a notice about two "military operations" to be carried out on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sunday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the area where the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea meet.
The Hainan MSA on Saturday announced that it will conduct live-fire drills in the Beibu Gulf from 8 a.m. on April 13 to noon on April 15.
(By Chang Jung-hsiang and Sean Lin)
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