China says live-fire drills around Taiwan 'completed successfully'
China "successfully completed" military drills around Taiwan that included live-fire exercises aimed at simulating a blockade of key ports and assaults on maritime targets, its military said on Wednesday.
Beijing launched missiles and deployed dozens of fighter jets, navy ships and coastguard vessels on Monday and Tuesday around Taiwan's main island.
Taipei slammed the war games as "highly provocative and reckless" and said they failed to impose a blockade of the self-ruled island.
China's Communist Party has never ruled democratic Taiwan, but Beijing claims the island of 23 million people is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to annex it.
The Taiwanese coastguard said on Wednesday Chinese warships and coastguard vessels were withdrawing from surrounding waters.
A spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) said it had "successfully completed" the drills, code-named "Justice Mission 2025".
Command spokesperson Senior Captain Li Xi said Chinese troops would keep training to "resolutely thwart the attempts of 'Taiwan Independence' separatists and external intervention".
Taiwan's coastguard was maintaining a deployment of 11 ships at sea because China Coast Guard vessels hadn't "completely left the area yet" and "we can't let our guard down", its deputy director-general Hsieh Ching-chin told AFP earlier on Wednesday.
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te warned on Wednesday that Chinese drills targeting the island "are not an isolated incident" and pose "significant risks" to the region.
"China's authoritarian expansion and escalating coercion pose significant risks to regional stability and also impact global shipping, trade and peace," he said at a ceremony for military officers in Taipei.
China's drills followed a bumper round of arms sales to Taipei by the United States, Taiwan's main security backer, and comments from Japan's prime minister that the use of force against Taiwan could warrant a military response from Tokyo.
- International criticism -
There has been a chorus of international criticism of China's drills.
Japan said on Wednesday that China's military exercises "increase tensions" across the Taiwan Strait, and that it had expressed its "concerns" to Beijing.
Australia's foreign ministry condemned the "destabilising" drills, saying it had raised concerns with its Beijing counterparts.
The Philippines' defence department also said it was "deeply concerned" over drills that threatened to "undermine regional peace and stability".
Beijing said criticism of its exercises was "irresponsible".
"These countries and institutions are turning a blind eye to the separatist forces in Taiwan attempting to achieve independence through military means," foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news briefing on Wednesday.
"Yet, they are making irresponsible criticisms of China's necessary and just actions to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, distorting facts and confusing right and wrong, which is utterly hypocritical."
China said on Tuesday it had deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters and bombers "to conduct drills on subjects of identification and verification, warning and expulsion, simulated strikes, assault on maritime targets, as well as anti-air and anti-submarine operations".
A statement from its armed forces said the exercises in waters to the north and south of Taiwan "tested capabilities of sea-air coordination and integrated blockade and control".
The drills were held as US ambassador to China David Perdue met with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan, which are part of the Quad group that is seen as a counter to Beijing.
"The Quad is a force for good working to maintain a free and open Indopacific," Perdue said in a post on X on Tuesday, alongside a photo of the four ambassadors in Beijing.
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D.Davis--PI
