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China provokes Taiwan with ‘fake’ naval drill in sensitive, narrow gulf

BARELY a week after its enormous show of force in the South China Sea, Beijing’s navy is provoking Taiwan with the threat of a live-fire exercise in a sensitive strait.

Jamie Seidel and AFP
3 min read
April 18, 2018 - 9:36PM
News Corp Australia Network
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CHINA’s navy is conducting a live-fire drill in the narrow waterway that separates it from Taiwan, further inflaming tensions between the neighbouring nations.

Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Liu Jieyi says the drill aims to “safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the government-run CGTN news agency.

The move comes just days after a fleet led by China’s sole aircraft carrier paraded in a show of strength through the South China Sea.

China’s Fujian Province maritime safety administration earlier today declared a naval live-fire drill was taking place between 8am and midnight local time.

Vessels were told to avoid an area off the Chinese mainland’s coast, triggering speculation that a flotilla including the aircraft carrier Liaoning would take part in the exercise.

Taipei has since dismissed the exercises as “routine” after the expected large-scale naval manoeuvres failed to materialise.

No Chinese navy ships were reported to be in the Taiwan Strait as of Wednesday afternoon.

In this April 12, 2018 photo released by Xinhua News Agency, the Liaoning aircraft carrier is accompanied by navy frigates and submarines conducting an exercises in the South China Sea. Picture: Li Gang/Xinhua
In this April 12, 2018 photo released by Xinhua News Agency, the Liaoning aircraft carrier is accompanied by navy frigates and submarines conducting an exercises in the South China Sea. Picture: Li Gang/Xinhua

‘FAKE DRILL’

Taiwan’s defence ministry says the drills only involve land-based artillery conducting “routine” shooting practice.

Beijing has yet to release any information about the drill, which Chinese authorities had said would run until midnight, without giving any details about which military equipment or personnel would be involved.

“China deliberately released fake information to exaggerate it, to make it sound huge when in fact it’s small,” Taiwanese defence ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi told AFP.

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“It’s the cheapest way of verbal intimidation and sabre-rattling,” Chen said, adding that such exercises had been held every year since 2007, except for last year.

The drill “is part of Beijing’s psychological warfare against Taiwan, and possibly a means to divert attention from Tsai’s visit abroad by compelling media to report on the military drills,” said J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior fellow at the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.

“Chinese media have played up the significance of these exercises, but in reality that will be relatively limited, and this time it’s unlikely they will cross into Taiwan’s side of the median line in the Taiwan Strait,” Cole said

“The mainland must create military pressure to let the other side know that no matter whether it happens gradually or they really declare independence, it is totally unacceptable,” Song Zhongping, military commentator for Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, told AFP.

Song, a former lecturer at a People’s Liberation Army university, had predicted that the Liaoning could participate in Wednesday’s drill, as it “has a lot of advantages for resolving the Taiwan problem”.

“It can effectively acquire control of the airspace, and even effectively block the US-Japanese alliance’s strategy for intervening in China’s plan to settle the Taiwan issue,” he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, speaks after he reviewed the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy fleet in the South China Sea.. Picture: Li Gang/Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, speaks after he reviewed the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy fleet in the South China Sea.. Picture: Li Gang/Xinhua

SABRE RATTLING

Beijing has stepped up military patrols around Taiwan and used diplomatic pressure to isolate Taiwan internationally since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office.

The announcement of the new drill followed a major display of naval strength for Chinese President Xi Jinping in the South China Sea last week. More than 40 warships and submarines, centred on China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning, paraded before the president-for-life before breaking off to conduct live-fire weapons drills.

Sanya maritime administration issued a statement said this exercise, off Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, concluded last Thursday.

During an address to the sailors, President Xi said it “has never been more pressing than today” for China to have a world-leading navy. Earlier, Xi warned in a speech that “all acts and tricks to separate the country are doomed to fail”.

China insists democratically-governed Taiwan is a wayward province that escaped the clutches of the 1940s Communist revolution. Much of the world has decided to sit on the fence, neither accepting Beijing’s authority over the island nor Taiwan’s independence.

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But that unsteady balance has been recently shaken by US President Donald Trump asserting he wishes to establish high-level links with Taipei.

Beijing has reacted with outrage, saying any assertion of independence by Taiwan will prompt it to invade.

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