![]() “Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces, is reasonable, lawful,” it said. Its Taiwan affairs office said the dispute was an internal affair. 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.īeijing claims Taiwan is a Chinese province and reserves the right to take it by force. The ambassador, Lu Shaye, accused Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive party of conducting “extremist” propaganda and turning the Taiwanese people against “reunification” with China. 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 threats were not limited to the exercises. Several cyber-attacks also struck Taiwan, targeting websites of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential office. It said “expected results had been achieved” but did not clarify what that meant.Īt 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”. 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”. 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”. Taipei earlier accused Beijing of imitating North Korea, a global pariah. 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.įoreign governments and multilateral groups including the G7 and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) condemned the hostilities and called for calm. Japan also speculated that four missiles flew over Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city, according to a statement its US embassy posted on Twitter.Īmid 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. Tokyo has protested against the drills to Beijing, according to the Japan Times. 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. 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.
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