China urged by Washington to show restraint on Taiwan

Taipei’s defence ministry detected nine Chinese warships and 58 aircraft around the island as Beijing flexes military muscles.

A Taiwanese Mirage 2000 fighter jet lands at northern Hsinchu on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Chinese fighter jets and warships simulated strikes on Taiwan on Sunday as they encircled the island during a second straight day of military drills launched in response to its president meeting the US House Speaker.

The exercises sparked condemnation from Taipei and calls for restraint from Washington, which said it was “monitoring Beijing’s actions closely”.

Dubbed Joint Sword, the three-day operation – which includes rehearsing an encirclement of Taiwan – will run until Monday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said.

“I am a little worried; I would be lying to you if I say that I am not,” said 73-year-old Donald Ho, who was exercising in a park on Sunday morning in Taipei.

“I am still worried because if a war broke out, both sides will suffer quite a lot.”

China’s war games sent planes, ships and personnel into “the maritime areas and air space of the Taiwan Strait, off the northern and southern coasts of the island, and to the island’s east”, the PLA said as it launched the exercises, engineered to flex Beijing’s military muscles in front of Taiwan and the world.

A report from state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday said drills had “simulated joint precision strikes against key targets on Taiwan island and surrounding waters”, adding forces “continued to maintain the situation of closely encircling the island”.

The write-up went on to say the air force had deployed dozens of aircraft to “fly into the target airspace”, and ground forces had carried out drills for “multi-target precision strikes”.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen denounced the drills, which come after she met US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

She pledged to work with “the US and other like-minded countries” in the face of “continued authoritarian expansionism”.

In Washington, a State Department spokesperson said the US had “consistently urged restraint and no change to the status quo”, but noted it had ample resources to fulfil its security commitments in Asia.

The US has been deliberately ambiguous on whether it would defend Taiwan militarily, though for decades it has sold weapons to the liberal democracy to help ensure its self-defence. Exercises on Monday will include live-fire drills off the rocky coast of China’s Fujian province, about 80km south of Taiwan’s Matsu Islands and 186km from Taipei. “These operations serve as a stern warning against the collusion between separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ and external forces and against their provocative activities,” PLA spokesman Shi Yin said. “The operations are necessary for safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

China views democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to take it one day, by force if necessary.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Sunday it had detected nine Chinese warships and 58 aircraft around the island. On Saturday the same number of ships were tracked, along with more than 70 aircraft. The ministry said it was monitoring Chinese military “movements through (a) joint intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance system”, adding the warplanes detected until noon local time included a mix of fighter jets and bombers.

The number of aircraft crossings into Taiwan’s southwestern air defence identification zone on Saturday was the highest recorded in a single day this year.

The drills came hours after the departure from Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in China to urge his counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Last August, China deployed warships, missiles and fighter jets around Taiwan in its largest show of force in years following a trip to the island by Ms McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.

Ms Tsai returned to Taiwan on Friday after visiting her island’s dwindling band of official diplomatic allies in Latin America, with two US stopovers.

AFP