China’s armed forces have made various military exercises near Taiwan, Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Combat Command spokesman Shi Yi said on Friday.
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“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Combat Command Zone recently organized joint multi-arms patrols and practical military exercises in the sea and air space around the island of Taiwan,” said Shi Yi, whose statement was published on the official account of the PLA Eastern Combat Command Zone in WeChat social networks.
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He stressed that the United States has recently been continuously taking steps on the Taiwan issue in support of separatist forces advocating “Taiwan independence,” which “is completely useless and only harms peace in the Taiwan Strait and exacerbates regional tensions.”
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Shi Yi noted that the Chinese army is ready to resolutely uphold national sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace and stability, and stop any attempts to organize “Taiwan independence.”
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Official relations between the central government of the PRC and its island province were interrupted in 1949, after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in a 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 contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Foundation for Cross-Strait Exchanges.
