The People's Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army) has mobilized a large part of its air and sea armies to carry out joint maneuvers around Taiwan with which to show their discomfort at the scales on American soil made by the Taiwanese vice president, William Lai, in the last days.
Despite the routine number of exercises, Beijing has warned that the objective set is unequivocal: "Check the real combat capacity" of the troops of the Eastern Theater Command that, as responsible for the defense of the east coast of China , has military control in the event of having to initiate a hypothetical military intervention in Taiwan. And they underlined this through official statements that defined the maneuvers as a "serious warning" to the "separatist groups" on the island and the "external forces" that support them.
Colonel Shi Yi, spokesman for the Command, said in the brief statement that the maneuvers will be carried out in the area adjacent to Taiwan, and include the participation of "combat ships and aircraft," which "practice coordination among themselves" and the "control of air and maritime space".
William Lai (also known as Lai Ching-te), returned to Taipei on Friday after visiting Paraguay and making two stops in the United States on his way to and from the South American country.
According to the official agenda, Lai did not meet with US officials, focusing on the Taiwanese community in the North American country.
But the vice director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Pan Xianzhang, warned Thursday that "the repeated stops" on US soil by members of the Taiwanese government "harm the interests of the citizens of the island" and that "threaten peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait". "Lai is looking for trouble" with his transits in the US.
Last April, China also held military exercises around the island when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States on a similar stopover on her trip to and from Central America.
With a hundred combat planes – between fighters and bombers – and a dozen warships, according to Chinese state television, China has been carrying out the largest drills it has carried out in front of Taiwan for months since 1995, when Beijing fired missiles to show its dissatisfaction with a visit by then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng Hui to Washington and the United States sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region, sailing one through the Taiwan Strait.
