Beijing today kicked off a “live ammunition” exercise in the Taiwan Strait. After China’s encirclement simulations around the disputed archipelago last week (described as a “warning” to Taiwanese “separatists”), the Chinese military continues to reaffirm its presence in the East China Sea. This latest operation follows the passage of two warships through the Strait on Sunday: one US and one Canadian.
Shooting with live ammunition
“On October 22, 2024, shots with live-fire ammunition will be fired,” read a statement from the China Maritime Security Administration in Pingtan, a city in the eastern Chinese province of Fujian. For this reason, a ban was placed on entering the area involved in the exercise, near the coast of the People’s Republic of China. The operation took place about one hundred kilometers from Pingtan Island, the mainland Chinese location closest to Taiwan.
A message to the United States and Taiwan
Exercises of this type are organized regularly in the Taiwan Strait. They reiterate the claims of Beijing, which plans to proceed with the “peaceful” reunification of what it considers a rebel province in the future. For its part, the Republic of China which governs Taiwan and the other islands of the archipelago considers itself an entity in itself: despite being recognized by only 12 countries in the world it has a de-facto autonomous and a thriving economy. Washington and its allies also often cross the Strait to reiterate that they are for freedom of navigation. The peculiarity of this latest announcement by the Chinese authorities lies in the fact that the national media reported the operation: although Taipei has stated that these are routine operations, for analysts the objective could be to send a message to the Taiwanese and US authorities.
