Chinese forces recently held live-fire landing exercises along the coast opposite Taiwan, the military’s official television channel said on Thursday, days after the self-governing island elected an i
Chinese forces recently held live-fire landing exercises along the coast opposite Taiwan, the military’s official television channel said on Thursday, days after the self-governing island elected an independence-leaning president.
CCTV7 said the drills were staged by the 31st Group Army based in Xiamen near the Taiwanese-held island of Kinmen, considered one of the People’s Liberation Army’s “frontline” units for any action regarding Taiwan. It said only that the exercises were held “recently” without giving an exact date.
Equipment used in the drills included long-range rockets, self-propelled howitzers, amphibious tanks and helicopters, the channel said. No details on the numbers of troops or equipment were given.
The defence ministry did not immediately say whether the drills were related to Saturday’s election that was won by Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party.
China says its exercises are planned well in advance and not timed to respond to specific events.
Meanwhile, Taiwan expressed serious concern over the media broadcast of military live fire exercises and landing drills, just days after a landslide election win by an independence-leaning opposition party in Taiwan.
Noting the units involved and the physical similarity of the exercise area to parts of Taiwan’s coastline, the popular Sina Military website said that “given the certain amount of risk the two sides are facing today, the hypothetical target of the 31st Group Army’s exercises might be those ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”
The 31st Group Army is one of three groups within the Nanjing Military district that has primary responsibility for eventualities involving Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province to be reunited with. During the 1950s, sections of the Army took part in the shelling of forces on Kinmen in a continuation of the Chinese civil war that forced Chiang Kai-shek’s forces to shift his Nationalist government to Taiwan in 1949. Army also joined in military drills in 1995 and 1996 aimed at intimidating Taiwanese into voting for pro-unification.
