A furious China launched \u201cpunishment\u201d drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to \u201cseparatist acts\u201d, sending up heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te. The exercises, in the Taiwan Strait and around groups of Taiwan-controlled islands beside the Chinese coast, come just three days after Lai took office, a man Beijing detests as a \u201cseparatist\u201d.UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres\u2019s spokesman called for all sides to \u201crefrain from acts that could escalate tensions in the region\u201d amid China\u2019s military drills around Taiwan. \u201cOn China, I can tell you that we\u2019re of course following the developments in the Taiwan Straits closely. We urge the relevant parties to refrain from acts that could escalate tensions in the region,\u201d said Stephane Dujarric. The United States \u201cstrongly\u201d urged China to show restraint after it launched military drills around Taiwan following the inauguration of a new president, describing Beijing\u2019s actions as \u201creckless\u201d. Washington had \u201cnoted with concern\u201d and was \u201cclosely monitoring\u201d the drills that China said were punishment for Taiwanese Presi\u00addent Lai Ching-te\u2019s inauguration speech, a senior US official said. \u201cWe strongly urge Beijing to act with restraint,\u201d the Biden administration official said, warning China not to use Taiwan\u2019s political transition as a \u201cpretext or excuse for provocative or coercive measures.\u201d China\u2019s actions were \u201creckless, risk escalation, and erode longstanding norms that have maintained regional peace and stability for decades,\u201d the official added. The United States, which recently approved billions in military aid for Taipei, was \u201cconfident in our current force posture\u201d in the region. The Chinese drills came after President Lai said in his inaugural speech on Monday that Taiwan \u201cmust demonstrate our resolution to defend our nation\u201d. China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, has denounced Lai\u2019s speech as a \u201cconfession of independence.\u201d Washington and Beijing have been trying to thaw their relations recently, with President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping meeting in California last year. However, Taiwan remains a major source of tension. A senior US general said earlier that the Chinese drills were expected but \u201cconcerning\u201d. \u201cWe expected something like this, frankly,\u201d US Lieutenant General Stephen Sklenka, the US Indo-Pacific Command deputy commander, told an audience in Canberra. \u201cJust because we expect that behavior does not mean that we should not condemn it \u2014 and we need to condemn it publicly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is concerning.\u201d Sklenka said other nations besides the United States should speak out against the drills. The Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) said it had started joint military drills, involving the army, navy, air force and rocket force, in areas around Taiwan at 7:45am. The drills are being held in the Taiwan Strait, the north, south and east of Taiwan, as well as areas around the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin, the command said in a statement, the first time China\u2019s exercises have included areas round these islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A furious China launched \u201cpunishment\u201d drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to \u201cseparatist acts\u201d, sending up heavily armed warplanes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17409,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}