Taiwan on High Alert, Fearing Island’s Naval Blockade
China's People's Liberation Army presented the maneuvers around the island as a “punishment to Taiwan's independence supporters” and a “stern warning against outside interference and provocations”
62 fighter jets and about 30 warships of China’s armed forces took part in the two-day United Sword 2024A military maneuvers launched around Taiwan after the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te. Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait several times and entered the air identification zone, putting Taiwanese defenses on high alert.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian (pictured) said that the May 23-24 maneuvers, aimed at countering “Taiwan independence,” were entirely “reasonable, lawful, and necessary.” According to General Wu, “the Taiwanese leader has challenged the One China principle since taking office, brazenly promoting the ‘two-state theory’ and trying to achieve ‘independence’ by force and reliance on outside powers.”
The Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman emphasized that the line being followed by Taiwan’s new president is nothing but “playing with fire, and the one who plays with fire gets burned.” Each provocation, he added, “will push our countermeasures to the next step forward until full reunification is achieved.”
Beijing has previously conducted two other exercises, the first in August 2022 in response to a visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives, and the second in April 2023, following the meeting between former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Kevin McCarthy, Pelosi’s successor.
According to Taiwanese media, the priority of the third stage of the Chinese maneuvers was to practice the possibility of conducting a total naval blockade of the island. A possible future naval blockade would play to Taipei’s two major weaknesses: heavy reliance on exports and total dependence on energy supplies. Karen Kuo, a spokeswoman for Taiwan’s presidential administration, called the maneuvers a “unilateral provocation” by China that “not only undermines the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, but also poses a threat to international order.”