After the visit of six US senators, Beijing moved ships and planes: “America defends you, we will do everything to ensure that there can never be a Chinese invasion.” And Taipei is accelerating preparations to counter a possible attack
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN BEIJING
Chinese naval maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait. “It is the answer to the wrong signal given by the United States on the Taiwan issue,” said a spokesman for the East Theater Command of the Beijing Armed Forces.
It’s a political signal that prompted China to flex its muscles: a delegation of six American senators arrived in Taipei yesterday and met Taiwanese President Tsai Ingwen today, Friday, April 15.
“These are dangerous games and whoever plays with fire will get burned,” the Chinese military spokesman concluded, reiterating the government’s position and announcing that the People’s Liberation Army has coordinated a demonstration patrol operation conducted by ships, fighter jets and bombers in the straits China from Taiwan and around the eastern part of the island.
Nothing new for Taipei, which is accustomed to seeing Chinese Navy units parading off its shores (the last time was last November for the visit of another US Congressional delegation to Taipei).
For some time now, the island has struggled with constant Beijing Air Force incursions into its “air identification zone”: About 900 incursions in the skies over Taiwan were reported last year.
Taipei is also accelerating preparations for an eventual defense. The government is recalling reservists for longer refresher periods than before. The defense has issued a 28page pamphlet with instructions for the population in the event of a Chinese attack. This week, Taiwanese fighters were seen in the skies over Taipei simulating a response to an attack: the exercise took place between 5am and 7am without warning the population to get used to difficult times.
The United States treats Taiwan’s security with the doctrine of “strategic ambiguity”: It formally recognizes only the People’s Republic of China, but a 1979 law requires the US government to provide the island with military assets for its own defense.
No president has ever made it clear whether America would fight China to save Taiwan, but recently Joe Biden has repeatedly said that Taiwan’s commitment to democracy is “rock solid.” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said today that the United States will do everything it can to ensure that an invasion of Taiwan by China “never happens.”
The signal was not liked in Beijing. How they didn’t like the words of the senators who arrived in Taipei. “The United States is on your side and will not abandon you because giving up Taiwan would mean giving up democracy and freedom,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Tsai. Senator Bob Menendez, President of the Foreign Affairs Commission, noted that the island is also a technological pole of global importance, producing 90% of the world’s semiconductors; Democrat Menendez concluded that it was “a country” that could not be lost.
Calling Taiwan “a country” is a provocation, according to Beijing, because the island is seen as a province that is part of the One China that even the United States formally recognizes.
The Chinese press wrote this morning that the People’s Republic would not yield to American pressure either on the Taiwan front or in friendly relations with Russia.
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated in the daily press conference: “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, there will be reunification; that of the island is an internal matter and not at all comparable to the situation in Ukraine”.
April 15, 2022 (change April 15, 2022 | 11:17)
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