Intensity of China’s exercises matches last year’s, Taiwan says

TAIPEI – China’s

military drills in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen transiting through the US

are on a par with the reaction by Beijing seen in 2022, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister said on Monday. The comments came as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held a third day of exercises.

“If you compare the two sets of military drills, I will say the one in August last year (was) more intense,” Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Monday, referring to Beijing’s entire response to then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visiting the island.

“So altogether, it was a more serious one at the time, but this time around, if you look at the intensity of their air threat, or naval threat against Taiwan, I think it’s similar to what we saw at the time.”

Last summer, the PLA not only conducted air and sea exercises but also

fired missiles over the island

, launched cyber attacks and used economic coercion in response to Mrs Pelosi’s trip, Mr Wu said.

Ms Tsai last week transited the United States and met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. She also received a US congressional delegation in Taipei at the weekend upon her return from the US. The Biden administration has urged China to refrain from increasing tensions and using the transit as a pretext to change the status quo in the strait.

Mr Wu also criticised Beijing for finding “excuses” to launch military exercises and said the acts cannot be tolerated.

“We need to prevent China from having the illusion that they can take Taiwan over quickly,” he said. “And therefore we need to speed up Taiwan’s preparedness and we’ve been doing that.”

China’s nationalist Global Times newspaper cited research fellow Zhao Xiaozhuo of the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences as saying that the PLA is practising targeting key military targets, including airfields and other buildings, during the drills. BLOOMBERG