Beijing launches live-fire drill to ‘test combat strength against Taiwan’
Six-day exercise in the East China Sea also meant to send message to United States and Japan over ties with Taipei, observers say
Beijing is testing its military muscle in a six-day, live-fire drill over an area “roughly the size of Taiwan” in the East China Sea, just days after President Xi Jinping pledged to work for peaceful cross-strait development.
Analysts said the exercise was in line with Beijing’s effort to increase military readiness while showing resolve to defend the “one China” policy, under which Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province awaiting reunification.
The drill started on Wednesday but Beijing has so far released few other details.
But the Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration announced on Monday that an area close to the port of Zhoushan, in Zhejiang province, to waters east of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, would be cordoned off to all marine traffic from Wednesday to Monday for military activity involving live ammunition.
The Global Times, part of the stable of Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, reported that the drill area was about the size of Taiwan and the exercise was a complex, joint operation designed to simulate real combat against Taipei.
It said the East China Sea would be one of the main battlefields if conflict broke out between Beijing and Taipei.
