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On the second day, China carried out maneuvers around Taiwan.
China’s military announced Friday that it is continuing maneuvers around Taiwan, exercises aimed at assessing the ability of its forces to “seize power” and control certain areas.
The military maneuvers, which are expected to last for two days, were launched on Thursday in the Taiwan Strait and around the islands located near the Chinese coast and controlled by Taipei.
They come just days after Lai Ching-te was inaugurated as Taiwan’s president for a four-year term.
During these maneuvers, four Chinese coast guard vessels entered the “forbidden waters” of two Taiwanese islands on Friday, Taipei said. “This is the eighth time this month that Chinese coast guard ships have entered the restricted waters,” Taiwan’s coast guard said, adding that the ships departed around 9 a.m. local time. “We call on China to exercise restraint and immediately stop its irrational behavior,” they said.
“Severe punishment”
China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province, has never ruled out the use of force to return the island to its fold and is not looking at the election victory of Lai Ching-te, an advocate of independence like Tsai Ing-wen.
In an inaugural speech on Monday, Lai Ching-te called on Beijing to end its threats and said no area on either side of the strait was “subordinate to the other”.
China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command said in a brief statement that its forces were continuing their maneuvers on Friday.
These exercises aim to “assess the ability to jointly seize power, launch joint attacks and capture areas of importance,” the press release stated. These maneuvers are presented as a “severe punishment” against the “separatists” of the island, which will end “in blood”.
Lai Ching-te, who believes that the Taiwanese people alone make decisions about their future, has in the past proposed dialogue with China in vain.
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