China announces fresh military drills around Taiwan day after scheduled end

A day after the expected end of its largest-ever exercises in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last week, China’s military launched new military drills on Monday in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan.

China’s Eastern Theatre Command announced that it would hold cooperative exercises with an emphasis on anti-submarine and sea assault operations, assuaging some security analysts’ and diplomats’ fears that Beijing would keep up the pressure on Taiwan’s defences.

China, which considers the autonomous island to be its own, was incensed by Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week and reacted by conducting its first-ever test launch of a ballistic missile over Taipei and cutting off certain lines of communication with Washington.

Although Taiwan has previously loosened flight restrictions close to the six previous Chinese exercise regions encircling the island, the duration and exact location of the most recent drills are yet unknown.

Prior to the announcement of the most recent drills, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines while he was on a visit and expressed her admiration for his resolve to go despite military pressure from China.

Whether Tsai had invited Gonsalves before to or following Pelosi’s visit was not apparent. During the four previous days of the exercises, Chinese warships, fighter aircraft, and drones conducted extensive manoeuvres near the island in addition to the firing of 11 short-range ballistic missiles.

A person involved in security planning who is knowledgeable with the issue says that shortly after those drills ended on Sunday, around 10 warships from China and Taiwan, each, manoeuvred closely along the Taiwan Strait’s unofficial middle line.