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China holds military exercises around Taiwan in "stern warning against separatists"
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Apr 1, 2025
China sent on Tuesday its army, navy, air and rocket forces to surround Taiwan for drills Beijing said were aimed at practising a blockade of the self-ruled island.'China is saying this is a warning against Taiwan independence', FRANCE 24's Yena Lee reports from Beijing.
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China is saying that this is a warning against Taiwan independent, sending at least 19 PLA vessels and an aircraft carrier
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The spokesperson for the Chinese Army's Eastern Command explained that the aim of these drills was to prepare the sea air combat and the blockade of key areas and sea lanes
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So this is yet another simulation of a blockade of Taiwan, how to attack and how to cut off Taiwan from the rest of the world
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world. In addition to this ground operation, there's also a propaganda operation that is taking
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place here in China. It is increasingly common for the PLA to publish videos alongside and at the
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same time as their military drills. And this time, there was one that was particularly dark
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Taiwanese president, like Qingdu, was depicted as an insect in a cartoon. And they described
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him as a parasite poisoning the island of Taiwan. Now, as you were saying, these exaskservient
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are rather common. In February, the Chinese even fired live ammunition during the drills in October
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They sent 125 fighter planes. The Chinese and Taiwanese national holidays around that time of year do explain that the scale of those exercises
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But just because these drills have become commonplace, it really doesn't mean that the situation has always been like this
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So indeed how significant Janice do you see this latest exercise Well at this stage it rather hard to say The Chinese side hasn actually pinpointed what was a trigger for them this time around yet
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Whilst we might expect, you know, a huge show of force after the inauguration of a Taiwanese
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president who was rather critical of Beijing, whilst we witnessed that crisis after a Nancy Pelosi's
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visit to Taipei, now we've kind of entered this era of, you know, the very presence, the very existence
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of Lai Ching-de seems to really bother Beijing. For the Communist Party, Lai is a separatist
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He's a parasite even as we were talking about a little earlier
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Lai, of course, I remind you, was democratically elected by the Taiwanese people
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But Beijing doesn't support any of this. Taiwan is for them a breakaway province
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On Taipei side, on Tuesday, the defense ministry accused China of, quote, undermining
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international order and regional stability. and becoming the biggest troublemaker in the eyes of the international community
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And we must not forget the international context we're in as well
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We're waiting to see Washington's response, for example, to China's latest actions
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Because even if China talks about this becoming, you know, this is routine training
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We do this all the time. If we do put things in a wider, longer historical context, these drills aren't routine
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It's really become very common under-president Xi Jinping. because for the Chinese president, the takeover of Taiwan has become a key issue
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and we really see the pressure that they're slowly mounting on Taipei
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