China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a blockade drill around the island of Taiwan on Monday and said the military exercises were a warning against “Taiwan Independence.”
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said the drills were a direct response to a speech Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te delivered this past Thursday. Lai said that Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, was not “subordinate” to mainland China, known as the People’s Republic of China.
Wu said that Lai and others were “forgetting their roots and deliberately severing historical ties across the Taiwan Strait” and inciting conflict. “Taiwan has never been a country and will never become one,” Wu said.
The Chinese blockade drills, officially dubbed the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, were carried out to the north, south, and east of Taiwan and in the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said that throughout Monday, it detected 17 Chinese naval vessels and 17 Chinese Coast Guard vessels around Taiwan.
According to The South China Morning Post, the PLA said Monday evening that it concluded the drills around Taiwan. A PLA spokesman said the military had “fully tested the integrated joint operation capabilities” around Taiwan.
China conducted its first blockade drill around Taiwan in August 2022 in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) making a provocative visit to the island despite major protests from Beijing. In April 2023, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Taiwan’s former president, Tsai Ing-wen, in California, provoking another Chinese blockade drill.
In his statement on the drills, Wu issued a warning against outside interference, referring to the US’s increasing support for Taiwan. “Relevant parties should cease supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ and stop undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Wu said.
China has been warning the US strongly against its ever-growing military and diplomatic support for Taiwan, calling it the “first red line” in US-China relations that must not be crossed. But the Biden administration is ignoring the concerns and recently approved a $567 million arms package for Taiwan.
The vast majority of the people living in Taiwan do not want to be part of mainland China. Why would they?
If I was living in Taiwan, I would not want to be part of the of mainland China.
How does the wishes of anybody obligate the Yankee Empire to go to war?
Good thing the ISLAND of Taiwan is separated from the MAINLAND of China by the TAIWAN STRAIT. And absent an impossibly quick geological shift, the island won't be a part of the mainland for tens of millions of years IF that's where tectonics are sending it.
Good gravy – do you Young Earth Creationist liars pay ANY attention to the world around you or is it a circus of fantasy in your skulls 24/7 ??
Keep your day job, you are not funny.
Even if I’m not funny, at least I’m honest.
It’s a great club. You should apply for membership – if you can break your addiction to lying.
The Confederacy didn't want to be part of a Union of Independent States that they joined voluntarily with the understanding they could secede voluntarily, either.
They are pretty much living independent of the main land.
Why they want to go the destructive route of Ukraine is baffling.
I doubt that any formal declaration of their actual independence is in the offing.
But every once in a while, the Beijing regime throws its weight around demanding that the Taipei regime pretend it’s ruled from Beijing.
Mainland China continues to offer scholarships, jobs, business opportunities, and an eventual seat at the governance of China.
It is a slim minority of barbarians from the west who want eternal war everywhere and ignore their own huge national debts and total loss of human soul.
"Mainland China continues to offer scholarships, jobs, business opportunities, and an eventual seat at the governance of China." So what? Taiwan's (GDP) per capita is three time higher than China's. The simple fact is that Taiwan is a better place to live and work than China.
As for a "seat at the governance of China." You do know that China is govern by the Chinese Communist Party?
China is a long way from the US and probly wont loan spiritually banjrupt Americans the gas money ro attack itself.
Again so what? The fact remains the Taiwan is better place than China. Taiwan has earn the right to be its own nation.
Better place according to whom?
Yeah, but sacrificing your country and people for something on paper? And we know if it happened, the US would implant an oppressive leadership anyway.
Adding: I generally attribute this to a highly bribed top, who envisions their own escape if the shit hits the fan.
The people in Taiwan are peaceful…! It's their government that is intimated, bribed and influenced by west particularly US and UK…!
The people of Taiwan do not want to be part of China.
They did when the UN, the US and the majority of the world recognized Taipei as the government of all of China.
The people of Crimea and Donbas don't want to be part of Ukraine either.
Aggregates don’t have opinions or desires.