by Amber Wang
Agence France-Presse
FENGGANG TOWNSHIP, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan’s military held a live-fire artillery drill Tuesday simulating a defense of the island against an attack after days of massive Chinese war games.
China launched its largest-ever air and sea exercises around Taiwan last week in a furious response to a visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to visit the self-ruled island in decades.
Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views its neighbor as part of Chinese territory to be seized one day, by force if necessary.
Lou Woei-jye, spokesman for Taiwan’s Eighth Army Corps, confirmed the drill started in the southern county of Pingtung shortly after 0040 GMT with the firing of target flares and artillery, ending within an hour at 0130 GMT.
Soldiers fired from howitzers tucked into the coast, hidden from view of the road that leads to popular beach destination Kenting.
As the last round was fired, Taiwanese soldiers were heard shouting “mission accomplished”, an AFP journalist said.
The drills, which will also take place Thursday, included the deployment of hundreds of troops and about 40 howitzers, the army said.
On Monday, Lou told AFP the drills had already been scheduled and were not in response to China’s exercises.
The island routinely stages military drills simulating defense against a Chinese invasion, and last month practiced repelling attacks from the sea in a “joint interception operation” as part of its largest annual exercises.
The anti-landing exercises come after China extended its own joint sea and air drills around Taiwan on Monday, but Washington said it did not expect an escalation from Beijing.
“I’m not worried, but I’m concerned they’re moving as much as they are. But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more than they are,” Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base.
China and Taiwan have not confirmed if Beijing’s drills in the Taiwan Strait would continue Tuesday.
– ‘Not worried’ –
Taipei condemned Beijing for carrying on with its military exercises around the island ahead of its own drill.
“China’s provocation and aggression have harmed the status quo of the Taiwan Strait and raised tensions in the region,” the island’s foreign ministry said in a statement Monday.
Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu was to hold a press conference on Tuesday about China’s extension of the drills.
Taiwan has insisted that no Chinese warplanes or ships entered its territorial waters — within 12 nautical miles of land — during Beijing’s drills.
The Chinese military, however, released a video last week of an air force pilot filming the island’s coastline and mountains from his cockpit, showing how close it had come to Taiwan’s shores.
Its ships and planes have also regularly crossed the median line — an unofficial demarcation between China and Taiwan that the former does not recognize — since drills began last week.
Ballistic missiles were fired over Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, during the exercises last week, according to Chinese state media.
The scale and intensity of China’s drills — as well as its withdrawal from key talks on climate and defense — have triggered outrage in the United States and other democracies.
The drills have also shown how an increasingly emboldened Chinese military could carry out a gruelling blockade of the island, experts say.
But Beijing on Monday defended its behavior as “firm, forceful and appropriate” to American provocation.
“(We) are only issuing a warning to the perpetrators,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing, promising China would “firmly smash the Taiwan authorities’ illusion of gaining independence through the US”.
“We urge the US to do some earnest reflection, and immediately correct its mistakes.”
© Agence France-Presse