In a context of military pressure exerted by Beijing on the island, the Taiwanese authorities declared that they were monitoring, on Wednesday October 23, the passage of a Chinese aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait, the epicenter of bilateral tensions. Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo announced that the aircraft carrier Liaoning was crossing the strait. “We are monitoring it closely,” he told reporters. This passage comes a week after major military encirclement maneuvers organized by China around the island territory, involving several warships and a record number of planes. It also comes the day after exercises led by Beijing, including live ammunition firing, near the Chinese coast in the Taiwan Strait – which separates the island from mainland China. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been execrable since 2016 and the arrival as Taiwanese president of Tsai Ing-wen, then of her successor Lai Ching-te in 2024. China has regularly accused them of wanting to widen the cultural separation between the island and the continent. In response, Beijing notably strengthened its military activity around the territory and increased military exercises in the strait. Read also | China undertakes live ammunition firing exercises near Taiwan Add to your selections “Beijing’s tactics to reinforce its intimidation” In mid-October, Beijing notably organized large-scale maneuvers with a record number of military planes and ships , a few days after Taiwan’s National Day. The Liaoning, China’s oldest aircraft carrier, sailed on this occasion in waters near the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni, east of Taiwan, and planes took off from it, according to the deputy secretary general of the Japanese government Kazuhiko Aoki. According to Jiang Hsin-biao, a military expert at the Taiwan Institute for National Defense and Security Research, the ship now appears to be returning to the eastern Chinese port of Qingdao to “refuel and receive maintenance.” necessary “. Since the communists took power in Beijing in 1949 and the flight of the Chinese nationalist government to Taiwan, the strait has politically separated this island of 23 million inhabitants, now democratically governed, from the People’s Republic of China. China considers the island as one of its provinces, which it has not yet succeeded in reunifying with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. It says it favors peaceful reunification, but recalled last week that it would “never” abandon the option of “use of force” if necessary. Questioned Wednesday during a regular press briefing on the Liaoning crossing, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, pretended to be surprised by the question. “Taiwan is a Chinese territory. The fact that a Chinese aircraft carrier is sailing on its own territory and in its territorial waters is completely normal,” he said. “No matter what the Taiwanese authorities say or do, they cannot change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, nor can they change the trend that Taiwan will be and must be unified,” he said. he pointed out. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers One military exercise after another, China is preparing for a potential invasion of Taiwan Add to your selections While China conducted new exercises Tuesday off the island with live ammunition, Taipei estimated that the latter were part of “Beijing’s tactics to reinforce its intimidation” in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese Prime Minister Cho Jung-tai described them as a “threat that undermines regional peace and stability.” Over the weekend, an American warship and another Canadian crossed the Taiwan Strait as part of regular passages carried out by Washington and its allies to, according to them, strengthen its status as a waterway international. Beijing condemned this passage, saying it disrupted “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The Taiwanese president takes the risk of a firm speech against China Add to your selections Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content
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