By Laurie Chen and Yimou Lee
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) – China’s defence ministry said on Thursday that drills which had alarmed Taiwan off its coast were “routine” and the island should stop complaining, as Taipei reported a surge in Chinese military activity, although no live-fire exercises.
Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, said on Wednesday the Chinese military had set up a zone for “shooting” drills in the southwestern part of the Taiwan Strait, off the key areas of Kaohsiung and Pingtung.
Taiwan condemned the move as dangerous, provocative and a threat to commercial flights and shipping, adding that it was given no prior notice.
At a regular news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said Taiwan was seeking attention.
“The relevant Taiwan authorities’ comments on the People’s Liberation Army’s routine exercises are hype, and we require them to stop playing tricks for more attention,” he said, without elaborating.
In its daily morning update of Chinese military activities in the prior 24 hours, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected 45 Chinese military aircraft and 14 navy ships operating around the island. They included seven ships in the Chinese-declared drill zone, 40 nautical miles off Taiwan.
In an accompanying map, the ministry showed the location of the drill zone, which it said was 70 nautical miles long and 20 nautical miles wide, though well outside of Taiwan’s territorial waters.
NO LIVE FIRE DETECTED
Taiwan did not detect any live-fire shooting in China’s “drill zone” and there was no further escalation of military tensions, however, two senior Taiwan officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the situation.
They said the Chinese move was very similar to its other recent military activity in the region, such as in the South China Sea and that off Australia’s coast, during which its navy did not give adequate notice of exercises.
“This is extremely rare and exceeds general expectations,” one of the officials said, referring to the Chinese military’s move of running exercises without prior warning.
“Allies are exchanging ideas,” the official said. “The democratic camp must do some risk management for our defence.”
Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that China was the “biggest troublemaker” in the region.
It urged the international community “to continue to pay attention to the security of the Taiwan Strait and the region, and to jointly condemn China’s repeated and unilateral actions”.
In Washington on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump declined to respond to a question on whether the United States would ever allow China to take control of Taiwan by force.
However, in a separate interview with Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the government had a long-standing position on Taiwan it was not going to abandon, namely being against any forced or coercive change in Taiwan’s status.
“America has existing commitments that it has made to prevent that from happening and to react to it, and that would be executed on … The Chinese are aware of this as well,” he said, when asked what would the U.S. do if China attacked.
CHINA PARLIAMENT MEET
Taiwan, whose government rejects China’s sovereignty claims, has repeatedly complained of Chinese military activities, including several rounds of full-scale war games during the past three years.
Next week, China holds the annual meeting of its largely rubber-stamp parliament, its biggest domestic political event, where it will unveil its defence budget for the year.
March also marks the 20th anniversary of China’s “anti-secession law” that allows it to use force on Taiwan in extreme cases, though the legislation is vague.
A third senior Taiwan official, familiar with government policy towards China, told Reuters that Taipei has made “the best preparations for the worst-case scenario” if China escalated its rhetoric on Taiwan ahead of that anniversary, adding pre-parliament drills were “very rare”.
“They escalated the level of intimidation for no reason,” the official added. “It is not conducive to cross-Strait stability and relations at all.”
This week, Taiwan also detained a Chinese-linked cargo vessel on suspicion of damaging an undersea communications cable.
Late on Wednesday, prosecutors in the southern city of Tainan said they had ordered the ship’s Chinese captain detained, and prohibited the seven other crew, also all Chinese, from leaving Taiwan.
On Wednesday China said Taiwan was casting aspersions before the facts were clear, and that undersea cables around the world were routinely damaged by accident.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Yimou Lee; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Clarence Fernandez)
