China on Monday launched the “Joint Sharp Sword 2024B” military exercise around Taiwan to practice joint assault, blockade and take control of key ports and areas of the island, said Li Xi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Combat Command Zone.
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“On October 14, the PLA Eastern Combat Command Zone sent its ground forces, navy, air force, missile and other troops to conduct the Joint Sharp Sword 2024B exercise in the Taiwan Strait, in areas north, south and east of the island. Taiwan,” Li Xi said in a statement published on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Defense.
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Li Xi called the purpose of the exercises “to intimidate separatist forces seeking Taiwan independence.”
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During the maneuvers, PLA ships and aircraft will approach Taiwan from different directions, various forces will practice a joint assault, “focusing on joint patrols of the Navy and Air Force, blocking and taking control of key ports and areas, striking sea and ground targets, capturing complex control”.
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The exercises, as noted, are conducted to test the combat capability of the forces of the Eastern Combat Command Zone to conduct joint military operations.
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According to the official representative of the Chinese Coast Guard, Liu Dejun, four detachments of coast guard ships are patrolling around Taiwan simultaneously with large-scale exercises of the Chinese army around Taiwan. He described the developments as practical actions to govern and control Taiwan in accordance with the “one China” principle and the law.
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Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense condemned the PLA exercises, calling them a provocation and promising to deploy appropriate forces to respond.
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The situation around Taiwan worsened significantly after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit as support for Taiwanese separatism and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between the Chinese central government and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to interact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
