Taiwan has threatened to respond with force after Chinese warships and fighter jets encircled the island early Monday morning in Beijing’s biggest invasion warning to date.
Graphics circulating in Chinese media show a blockade being performed around the democratically-run island as a fierce warning was issued against Taiwanese independence.
The military operation – named Joint Sword-2024B – comes after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te refused to acknowledge Taiwan as a part of the People’s Republic of China under the rule of the Communist Party.
Ex-US National Security Advisor John Bolton previously told Daily Express US he anticipates a Chinese takeover bid in the next few years.
The former UN ambassador said a scenario more likely than an outright invasion would be a prolonged “air and naval blockade” in the South China Sea to gauge the response of America and its allies.
China appears to be enacting a blockade of this style today, though it is described as a drill at this stage – albeit the largest to date.
Military aircraft and warships have repeatedly encroached on Taiwan’s territory over the last few years amid strongly-worded threats from Bejing about reclaiming the nation.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry called the drills a provocation and said its forces were prepared to respond.
The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Navy Senior Captain Li Xi said the navy, army air force and missile corps are all mobilized for the drills. “This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War Two. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power on the mainland.
Lai took office in May, continuing the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability.
Speaking to Daily Express US, Bolton said: “Beijing doesn’t want a grinding World War One kind of conflict. They want to take over Taiwan with its production facilities, and its infrastructure intact. They want that added to Chinese capabilities. So I think at this point, the more likely scenario, not less dangerous just a different scenario than an outright invasion is they create the pretext for some kind of crisis over Taiwan.
“They throw a naval and air blockade around it. They wait to see if the United States, Japan and others come to Taiwan’s side. That’s why this question of being able to supply a military effort across the Pacific is so important.”
