From August 4 to 7, the island of Taiwan will be surrounded by six People’s Liberation Army military practice areas. These six areas cross the center line of the strait and the nearest is only 16.5 kilometers from the Taiwanese coastline. Eighteen international air corridors and seven ports will be impacted.
For the Taiwanese media Lianhe Xinwen Wang, this situation “equivalent to a three-day blockade of Taiwan, by sea and air”. This Thursday, at 7 a.m. local time in Beijing, the Chinese nationalist newspaper Huanqiu Shibao clarified that“no civilian flights are flying over the exercise area at this time”.
For Ran Yiqiao, Sino-Canadian specialist in China, the Beijing military exercise achieves“kill two birds with one stone” : his temptation to“internalize” the Taiwan Strait and a direct challenge to the Asia-Pacific maritime order, led until then by the United States. “In some areas, Chinese military exercises are conducted in the internal waters of Taiw