China Launches More Military Exercises Surrounding Taiwan
Beijing has launched large-scale open-ended drills around Taiwan, calling them a warning to those who "promote independence." Taipei has called the drills "irrational provocations."
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00:00Taiwan is condemning China's military drills around the country calling them
00:04irrational provocations. Now Beijing launched large-scale open-ended drills
00:08around Taiwan earlier on Monday saying that it's a warning to those who quote
00:12promote independence. Jaime Ocon is following the story for us here in Taipei
00:17and he joins us from the Taiwan Plus newsroom. Jaime what do we know so far
00:21about these drills and what's Taiwan's response been? Well Taiwan has scrambled
00:28the fighter jets and deployed anti-air and anti-ship missiles in response to
00:32China's military activity. Taiwan has already spotted about 25 Chinese
00:37military aircraft around the region. There's also a Chinese aircraft carrier in
00:41waters east of Taiwan. So what we know so far is that China announced that it's
00:46conducting a large-scale military exercises that it's calling Joint Sword
00:492024B. They started Monday at 6 a.m. but China has yet to give an end date to
00:55those exercises. Beijing says that the drills aim to practice how to blockade
01:00Taiwan and control key ports. It's also practicing how to strike targets both on
01:05land and at sea. Now these drills come just a few days after Taiwan celebrated
01:10its National Day where President Lai Ching-te gave a speech saying that
01:14neither the Republic of China which is Taiwan's official name or the PRC the
01:18People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other. Now that
01:22statement is seen as pretty provocative from China as it sees Taiwan as part of
01:27its own territory. Overall Lai's speech was pretty restrained and even reaching
01:32out to Beijing at sometimes to ask for cooperation on certain issues like
01:36climate change and regional security. But despite Lai giving a more toned-down
01:41speech many say that China was just looking for a pretext to conduct
01:45exercises. I spoke to one analyst who said that China was always going to
01:49react in this way. I think it's really important to note that President Lai's
01:54speech was very, he tried to strike a very like even tone and choose words
02:01that resembled those of President Tsai and just find a lot of continuity and
02:07I think there's a really clear indicator here that even with that good effort by
02:12President Lai, Beijing is just not having it and that's a really important sign I
02:17think for everybody to take. I think what's interesting though is that in
02:20parallel to this response you also have President Tsai who's now obviously out
02:25of office. She's taking a trip to Europe so I think the lack of an end date or at
02:30least public acknowledgement of an end date gives the PRC to also signal a
02:35response to President Tsai's visit to Europe depending on what she says or
02:40does publicly as well. Lauren what's your read on these exercises? Is this more
02:44about China trying to practice how to blockade Taiwan? You know there's a lot
02:48of different signals I would read from this. One of them is that you know the
02:53PRC no longer has just the intention to do these things. They also have the
02:58capability and they're very clearly demonstrating it to you. Whether
03:03it's the Coast Guard or some of the closure zones, the way they've changed
03:08how this exercise is linked together and how you had the aircraft carrier as well
03:14sailing out last night through the Bashi Channel. All of that to me is a
03:18very clear signal that again the PRC has the capability to do something like a
03:24blockade or a quarantine and they're adjusting and refining some of these
03:28tactics within that capability space to to enforce a blockade or quarantine. Now
03:34there's been a lot of comparisons between these drills and drills that
03:37were held back in May from China after Lai Ching-Teh took office. Those were
03:41called Joint Sword 2024-A. These drills that started on Monday are called Joint
03:46Sword 2024-B. So many believe that this is just part two, a continuation of
03:50China's military aggression towards Taiwan. It's still a bit too early to
03:55tell what the key differences, what the real differences are between the two
03:58drills but regardless of the situation Taiwan's military says it is alert and
04:02responding to the situation.