By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 4 hours ago, updated 9 minutes ago
Beijing wants to “change the status quo in the Asia-Pacific region,” said the island’s foreign minister as the Taiwanese army begins a live ammunition artillery drill on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s foreign minister said Tuesday Beijing is using its military drills near the island to “prepare” for an invasion there and “change the status quo in the Asia-Pacific region.” “China used the drills and its military roadmap to prepare to invade Taiwan,” Joseph Wu said at a news conference in Taipei. “China’s real intention is to transform the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and across the region.”
The political statement comes as Taiwan’s army began a live ammunition artillery drill simulating the island’s defenses against an attack by China on Tuesday after large-scale military maneuvers near Beijing, an AFP journalist on the spot noted.
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“Joint Wiretapping Operation”
Lou Woei-jye, spokesman for Taiwan’s 8th Army Corps, confirmed drills in southern Pingtung County began shortly after 0040 GMT with flares and artillery fire. The exercise will end around 01:30 GMT, he added. The drills, a second of which is scheduled for Thursday, will involve the deployment of several hundred troops and about 40 howitzers, the military said.
China launched its largest military maneuvers around Taiwan last week in response to a visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top US official to visit the self-governing island in decades. China considers Taiwan, with a population of around 23 million, to be one of its provinces that it has not successfully reunited with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War (1949).
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Lou Woei-jye said Monday that the Taiwan exercises are already planned and are not a reaction to the ongoing Chinese exercises. The island regularly hosts military drills simulating a Chinese invasion and last month was trained to repel attacks from the sea in a “joint intercept operation” as part of its largest annual drill.
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