China raised tensions across Asia on Thursday after launching huge military exercises in the air and seas around Taiwan, including firing ballistic missiles close to the island some of which landed in Japanese waters. The brazen show of force disrupted one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and diverted hundreds of flights.
The exercises, which included rockets, attack helicopters and gunships, were arranged in reaction to a defiant visit to the island by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has threatened to take it by force.
Thursday’s drills were in unprecedented proximity to Taiwan, and included PLA warplane and navy vessel incursions over the median line of the Taiwan strait – an unofficial border between China and Taiwan.
Japan’s defence ministry said at least five of the 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles launched by China during the drills had fallen into its exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from Japan’s coast. Tokyo has protested against the drills to Beijing, according to the Japan Times.
Japan also speculated that four missiles flew over Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city, according to a statement its US embassy posted on Twitter.
Amid growing international concerns, Taiwan’s defence ministry tried to play down the Chinese missile launches, saying they flew high into the atmosphere and constituted no threat to the island. Earlier, in a televised speech, Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen, urged Beijing to exercise restraint and warned residents to be extra vigilant about information coming from the mainland.
Foreign governments and multilateral groups including the G7 and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) condemned the hostilities and called for calm.
Taipei earlier accused Beijing of imitating North Korea, a global pariah.
The exercises, which are due to run until Sunday, began at midday local time on Thursday, with the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV announcing the beginning of an “important military training exercise”.
The People’s Liberation Army’s eastern theatre command said it had conducted “long-range live-fire shooting training” in the Taiwan strait, including “precision strikes on specific areas in the eastern part”. It said “expected results had been achieved” but did not clarify what that meant.
At about the same time, an AFP reporter based in Pingtan, on China’s coast, witnessed the Chinese army launching several small projectiles into the water, “from the proximity of nearby military installations flying into the sky followed by plumes of white smoke and loud booming sounds around”.
VIDEO: Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island, one of mainland China's closest points to Taiwan, in Fujian province on Thursday.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 4, 2022
China has begun massive military drills off Taiwan following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the self-ruled island pic.twitter.com/7czzPNQbNp
Notices of the exercises identified six areas encircling Taiwan, with warnings for all ships and aircraft to “not enter the relevant sea areas and airspace”. On Thursday, local media reported the last-minute announcement of a seventh. Some of the zones overlap with Taiwan’s territorial waters, and are near key shipping ports.
Taiwan’s defence ministry has accused China of in effect mounting a blockade by their actions. Flights and ships were still able to arrive in Taiwan, but had reportedly been advised to find alternative routes. About 900 flights are estimated to be affected by the avoidance notices over the drill period.
Pelosi arrived in Taipei on Tuesday night under intense global scrutiny. She met Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, as well as other political and business leaders and dissidents. She said US solidarity with Taiwan was “crucial” in facing an increasingly authoritarian China.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon Taiwan, and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” she said.
China has reacted with fury since the plan for the visit was leaked some weeks ago. It had threatened countermeasures – an oft-heard response to foreign acts of support for Taiwan, but which drew higher than usual levels of concern from China-watchers. Analysts suggested Beijing had backed itself into a corner with its heightened rhetoric, and would have to demonstrate a much larger show of force than usual if it did not want to lose credibility.
Several cyber-attacks also struck Taiwan, targeting websites of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential office.
The threats were not limited to the exercises. China’s ambassador to France said the Taiwanese people would be “re-educated” after any successful annexation by China, in a fiery interview on French television.
The ambassador, Lu Shaye, accused Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive party of conducting “extremist” propaganda and turning the Taiwanese people against “reunification” with China.
Online, many observers noted the term “re-education” was also used to describe Chinese authorities’ treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
Beijing claims Taiwan is a Chinese province and reserves the right to take it by force. Its Taiwan affairs office said the dispute was an internal affair. “Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces, is reasonable, lawful,” it said.
The US condemned the missile launches.
“China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“The temperature’s pretty high,” but tensions “can come down very easily by just having the Chinese stop these very aggressive military drills,” he added.
Foreign ministers from the 10-member Asean, meeting in Cambodia this week, called for “maximum restraint”, without mentioning the US or China by name. In a statement it said the situation could lead to “serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers”.
At the Asean meeting, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, claimed Beijing had made the “greatest diplomatic efforts” but would “never allow its core interests to be hurt”.
The G7 countries also urged calm, accusing China of “increasing tensions and destabilising the region”.
“There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan strait,” it said. “We call on the PRC [People’s Republic of China] not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region, and to resolve cross-strait differences by peaceful means.”
In response, China’s UK embassy accused the G7 of being “led astray by the US” and told its members to “stop making wrong remarks relating to Taiwan, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop sending wrong signals in any form to secessionist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’”.
Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin, Rebecca Ratcliffe and Reuters
