China says war games around Taiwan to test ability to ‘seize power’
Al Jazeera
The People’s Liberation Army continues land, sea and air exercises that began on Thursday around the self-ruled island .
China’s military has begun its second day of war games around Taiwan, with drills that it said were to test the armed forces’ ability to “seize power” and control key areas of the self-ruled democracy.
As the first day of exercises, codenamed Joint Sword-2024A, got under way on Thursday, China described them as “punishment” following the inauguration speech by Taiwan’s new president William Lai Ching-te in which he said Taiwan was a “sovereign and independent nation with sovereignty resting in the people”.
Lai also stressed Taiwan would make no concessions on its freedoms and called on Beijing to “stop its aggression against Taiwan”.
The drills are part of an escalating campaign of political and military intimidation by Beijing, which claims the island as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal of unification.
The two-day exercises are testing the “capability of joint seizure of power, joint strikes and control of key territories,” said Colonel Li Xi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command.
