China erupts over Wong’s ‘finger-pointing’ over blasts at Taiwan

China launches a ‘Wolf Warrior’ attack after the foreign minister lined up with her US and Japanese counterparts.

Penny Wong at the East Asia Summit foreign ministers meeting at the Sokha Phnom Penh hotel of Friday. Picture: DFAT

China has declared itself the “victim” after it launched unprecedented military aggression towards Taiwan, accusing Foreign Minister Penny Wong of “finger-pointing”.

After shooting 11 ballistic missiles over Taiwan and near Japan, China launched a “wolf warrior”-style attack on Canberra after Senator Wong joined her counterparts from the US and Japan to condemn Beijing’s actions in one of the most febrile regions in the world.

Chinese diplomats said China was “the victim”, told Australians to remember the war history of “Japan’s Fascists” and said it was the “US that should be condemned” in comments that have jolted the Albanese government’s already strained attempt to stabilise relations with Beijing.

The fiery comments were released as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted the third day of its parade of missile, navy and air fighting capability in six locations surrounding Taiwan.

By Sunday, Taiwanese authorities indicated those war games were winding down, with flight and shipping patterns returning to pre-crisis patterns. But Chinese and Taiwanese warships were still shadowing each other late on Sunday night, according to reports.

A spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Canberra said its actions, blasted by Senator Wong on Friday, were justified.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for the finger-pointing on China’s justified actions to safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity. We firmly oppose and sternly condemn this,” said a spokesman at China’s embassy in Canberra.

The display of China’s formidable military build-up was launched after US house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 82, visited Taiwan on a historic overnight trip. Beijing had tried to stop the trip, which it said was a breach of the US’s “One China” policy.

Taiwan said China’s military drills over the weekend appeared to simulate an attack on its main island, with the PLA flying more than 20 warplanes and sailing more than a dozen warships in the vicinity of the island.

“This morning, we continued to detect multiple waves of Chinese military aircraft, naval ships and drones operating in the Taiwan Strait area and conducting joint sea and air drills, simulating an attack on Taiwan proper and strikes on our naval vessels,” Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday.

The live-fire drills included the firing of 11 ballistic missiles on Thursday, with some flying directly over Taiwan’s main island and other landing in waters near Japan, both unprecedented acts.

China’s People’s Liberation Army also flew drones around Japanese and Taiwanese islands, part of a sweeping display of military power that rattled the Indo-Pacific.

“We are in a new period,” said John Culver, a former CIA analyst who has studied the PLA for decades. Mr Culver said Beijing appeared to be following a playbook it used in 2012 in its East China Sea dispute with Japan and after its 2020 deadly border clash with India, using a crisis to permanently extend its military operations in contested territory. “I think this is the new normal,” he said.

China’s diplomats in Australia said the trip by Ms Pelosi – the most senior US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years – showed the US was “the biggest saboteur and destabiliser of peace in the Taiwan Strait and the biggest troublemaker to regional stability”. “It is the US that should be condemned. China is the victim of political provocation from the US,” China’s Canberra embassy said.

Its Canberra diplomats said rather than protesting Beijing’s missile launches, Japan should engage in “self-reflection and discretion”. “Australia was also the victim of Japan’s Fascists in World War II,” the Chinese diplomat said.

Canberra and Tokyo have become close strategic partners over the past decade, working together to constrain Beijing’s increasing aggression in the region. The joint Australian, Japanese and US statement was released late on Friday after Foreign Minister Wong, Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on the sidelines of an ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Cambodia.

“They condemned the PRC’s launch of ballistic missiles, five of which the Japanese government reported landed in its exclusive economic zones, raising tension and destabilising the region,” the statement said.

“The secretary and the foreign ministers urged the PRC to immediately cease the military exercises.”

Xi Jinping’s administration has told the Chinese public through its propaganda organs and Foreign Ministry there is widespread international support for its ongoing “countermeasures” against Taiwan. China’s latest outburst at Canberra comes only one month after Foreign Minister Wang Yi ended a more than two-year diplomatic freeze and met with his Australian counterpart in Bali.

It underlines the deep structural problems in the bilateral relationship that remain after the change of government, despite Canberra’s efforts to use a less sharp tone when talking about Beijing.

The fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis is taking place months before China’s leader is given a precedent-breaking third five-year term at a meeting of senior Communist Party cadres.