Australia’s foreign minister has joined her ASEAN counterparts in pleading for US and China to dial down tensions.
could lead to accidental conflict as Beijing hit back at calls from the West to exercise calm and restraint after the controversial visit to the island of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
the exercises, the largest ever by China in the Taiwan Strait, would include live firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding TaiwanEarlier, on Wednesday night Taiwan scrambled jets to hold off Chinese warplanes that threatened to invade its airspace as Beijing unleashed its furious response to this week’s visit by Ms Pelosi.Chinese state media dubbed the visit an act of war.
These are valid concerns, military analysts say. “When there is a period of high tension – like we have now and opposing forces are operating deliberately close to each other and trying to challenge each other – this is when miscalculations happen,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Mr Koh said the two most likely sources of miscalculation would involve China intruding into Taiwan’s airspace or US reconnaissance planes flying close to the Chinese drills.commentator Hu Xijin said China had used the Pelosi visit to its advantage. He said the drills underway “far exceed” those undertaken in the last Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, and served “as rehearsals for the blockading of Taiwan as well as the reunification of the island”.
Taiwan also scrambled jets on Wednesday night to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone, the island’s defence ministry said, adding that 22 of them crossed the median line separating the island from China.The Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday that a meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart on the sidelines of ASEAN events in Cambodia had been cancelled.
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