The tension in the Taiwan Strait is far from easing. The People’s Republic of China Army on Monday conducted new combat readiness exercises in the sea and airspace around the Taiwanese island.where an unofficial visit by a delegation of legislators from the United States Congress began on Sunday, a few days after the trip of the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
China rejects the announced agenda for the visit of US lawmakers to Taiwan, an island located a few kilometers from the Chinese coast and that maintains an autonomous regime despite the claims of annexation by the Asian giant. “This is a solemn deterrence against the United States and Taiwan for continuing to play political tricks and undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said Shi Yi, a spokesman for the Chinese Army’s Eastern Theater Command.
The Chinese Army statement warns that it will “resolutely defend national sovereignty”. After Pelosi’s visit, in the first days of August, Beijing spoke of a “red line being crossed” by grounding a senior US representative and responded with military exercises involving ships, missiles and fighter jets.
Taiwan’s reaction
For its part, the Taiwanese Army began to review and analyze the tactics used by China in the recent exercises carried out in the vicinity of the island, the CNA news agency reported. The objective of the Taiwanese armed forces is to analyze Chinese strategies in order to obtain useful references for their future military, in a context of increasing escalation of the conflict in the Taiwan Strait, a military source who requested anonymity told the agency. .
The island’s response to the maneuvers carried out by China took the form of a series of exercises that began on August 9, and will continue on the 24th of this month with tests carried out in the waters and airspace of the northeast and southwest of Taiwan. . The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense also denounced the incursions this Monday of 30 planes and five Chinese military ships in areas surrounding the island.which are added to the 22 planes and six ships that did the same on Sunday, coinciding with the arrival of the delegation of US congressmen.
The visit of the American congressmen
The trip of the legislators led by Senator Ed Markey lasted 20 hours and included a meeting with the president of the island, Tsai Ing-wen, who stressed that the visit demonstrates the support of the US Congress for Taiwan. Tsai said that he wants “maintain a status quo across the Taiwan Strait” He added that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated “the threat that authoritarian states pose to the world order,” according to a statement released by his office.
In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, through its spokesman Wang Wenbin, described the delegation’s trip as an interference by the United States “in the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the Asian giant. Wang assured in turn that this trip is equivalent to “ignoring” China’s “protests and firm opposition” to the United States.
Pelosi’s visit this month resulted in the imposition of sanctions on the veteran Democratic politician and the suspension of several high-level talks between China and the United States, including those on defense and climate change, to which were added trade vetoes to importing hundreds of Taiwanese food products. China claims sovereignty over the island and considers Taiwan a rebel province since the nationalists of the Kuomintang withdrew there in 1949, after losing the civil war against the communists.