The Chinese military practiced live-fire strikes in the East China Sea in an escalation of ongoing surprise drills near Taiwan, the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement Wednesday. <\/p>\n
China\u2019s armed forces launched exercises, dubbed \u201cStrait Thunder-2025A,\u201d in the middle and southern areas of the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, focusing on testing the troops\u2019 capabilities of \u201cjoint blockade and control\u201d and \u201cprecision strikes on key targets,\u201d the Eastern Theater Command\u2019s spokesperson Senior Colonel Shi Yi said. <\/p>\n
As part of the drills, which were not announced ahead of time, the ground army of the Eastern Theater Command conducted \u201clive-fire long-range strike drills in designated areas of the East China Sea,\u201d according to the statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe drills involved precision strikes on simulated targets such as key ports and energy facilities and achieved the intended results,\u201d Shi added. <\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s drills came after the PLA conducted joint exercises involving its army, navy, air force and rocket force around Taiwan \u201cfrom multiple directions\u201d on Tuesday, days after US defense chief Pete Hegseth vowed to counter \u201cChina\u2019s aggression\u201d on his first visit to Asia. <\/p>\n
Eastern Theater Command said the drills were a \u201cstern warning and forceful deterrence against \u2018Taiwan Independence\u2019 separatist forces,\u201d calling them \u201clegitimate and necessary action to safeguard China\u2019s sovereignty and national unity.\u201d <\/p>\n
For Taiwan, a democracy of some 23 million people that sits just 80 miles from China at its nearest point, the drills are the latest reminder of the threat that comes from its giant Communist Party-run neighbor, which claims the island as its own and has vowed to seize it by force if necessary. <\/p>\n
Taiwan has denounced the drills as an \u201cirrational provocation\u201d and accused China of being a \u201ctroublemaker.\u201d <\/p>\n
The United States, Taiwan\u2019s biggest international backer, condemned what it called \u201cChina\u2019s irresponsible threats and military pressure operations near Taiwan.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cChina\u2019s escalating military intimidation tactics only serve to exacerbate tensions and undermine cross-Strait peace and stability,\u201d the State Department said in a statement. <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated. <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chinese military practiced live-fire strikes in the East China Sea in an escalation of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}