China drills 'Strait Thunder' around Taiwan continue
BEIJING/TAIPEI: China's military began a second day of drills around Taiwan on Wednesday and for the first time gave them a code name, Strait Thunder-2025A, saying they were focused on honing the ability to blockade the island and make precision strikes.
The exercises follow a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, who China called a "parasite" on Tuesday, and come on the heels of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth'sAsiavisit, during which he repeatedly criticised Beijing.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly denounced Lai as a "separatist". Lai, who won election and took office last year, rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.
China's Eastern Theatre Command said the drills were taking place in the middle and southern areas of the Taiwan Strait. Some of Taiwan's outlying islands are just a few kilometres from China.
"The exercises focus on subjects of identification and verification, warning and expulsion, and interception and detention so as to test the troops' capabilities of area regulation and control, joint blockade and control, and precision strikes on key targets," it said in a statement.
A senior Taiwan security official said there were more than 10 Chinese warships in Taiwan's "response zone" on Wednesday morning, and that China's coast guard was participating with "harassment" drills.
China had not formally named Tuesday's drills. China called two rounds of major war games last year around the island Joint Sword-2024A and Joint Sword-2024B.
The United States, Taiwan's most important international backer and main arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, condemned the exercises.
"Once again, China's aggressive military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan only serve to exacerbate tensions and put the region's security and the world's prosperity at risk," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
Japan and the European Union also expressed concern.
"The EU has a direct interest in the preservation of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. We oppose any unilateral actions that change the status quo by force or coercion," an EU spokesperson said. — Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Observer
21 hours ago
- Observer
Immigration only helps the economy if strictly controlled
Immigration has been an issue for a number of years in the UK and it, inevitably, played a major role in the referendum for Brexit in 2016. Regardless of whether immigration involves an EU state or elsewhere, it remains an important issue with the government. It was of no surprise that the Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, unveiled last month, as widely reported, sweeping reforms to the UK's immigration system in a bid to curb levels of net migration. Starmer laid out a series of measures that will make it harder to move to the UK and obtain citizenship. The UK government's proposals to prioritise highly skilled immigration are understandable – the only question is whether they go far enough. Since the pandemic, the profile of immigration patterns has shifted sharply towards low-skilled migration, while the number of visas granted to dependents has risen sharply. This includes over 300,000 granted to dependents of those on the health and social care route alone between 2021 and 2023. The number of international students has also soared, driven by one-year masters courses at low-ranked universities. UK visas for universities globally ranked between 601 and 1,200 increased by 49 per cent between 2021 and 2023, while visas for those ranked in the top 100 fell by seven per cent. And far from paying their fees, studying and then departing, in the year to June 2023, 46 per cent had shifted to a non-study visa within one year, compared to just two per cent of those who arrived on such visas in 2019. While the Treasury may simplistically score migration as boosting growth, what matters is GDP per capita. Recent OBR analysis shows low-skilled immigrants are a fiscal burden throughout their lives – and this analysis does not account for the impact of dependents. The government's own figures show the average employment rate for adults arriving by the family route is only 64 per cent, with average earnings of £27,200. Mass immigration drives up house prices and, undoubtedly, puts more pressure on public services and social cohesion. It places downward pressure on wages, despite the fervent wishes of some, the labour market obeys the law of supply and demand. More insidiously, it reduces the incentives of employers to train up British workers., confident that they will instead be able to import a cheaper worker from overseas. The argument is – where immigration is permitted, it should be primarily short-term in nature, rather than long-term, which is why the extension of the qualification period to apply to stay in the country permanently is important. As announced, the tightening of English language requirements and the reimposition of a degree requirement for skilled workers are positive, as is the increase in Immigration Skills Charge. Closing social care visas to new overseas applicants could be significant, though the governments own analysis estimates that it will reduce net migration by only 7,000 a year. The new restriction on graduates are largely cosmetic and will do nothing to stop the scandal that only 30 per cent of surveyed graduate visa holders were working in professional level jobs after graduation. However, many of these changes will not come into effect until next year, and the details are too often vague or incomplete. How many occupations will be on the new Temporary Shortage List? How many refugees will be allowed to apply through the skilled worker route? Will the levy on international student income ever be implemented? The Home Office (Interior Ministry) stands alone against the vested interests and stakeholder lobbies of other government departments. Immigration can deliver economic gains – but only if it is tightly controlled and very strictly targeted on those who will be net contributors. Andy Jalil The writer is our foreign correspondent based in the UK
Observer
21 hours ago
- Observer
Russia pushes offensive into Ukraine's eastern industrial region
MOSCOW: Russia said on Sunday it was pushing into Ukraine's eastern industrial Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time in its three-year offensive — a significant territorial escalation amid stalled peace talks. Moscow, which has the initiative on the battlefield, has repeatedly refused calls by Ukraine, Europe and US President Donald Trump for a full and unconditional ceasefire. At June 2 talks in Istanbul it demanded Kyiv pull troops back from the frontline, agree to end all Western arms support and give up on its ambitions to join the Nato military alliance. Dnipropetrovsk is not among the five Ukrainian regions over which Russia has asserted a formal territorial claim. It is an important mining and industrial hub for Ukraine and deeper Russian advances into the region could have a serious knock-on effect for Kyiv's struggling military and economy. Dnipropetrovosk had an estimated population of three million before Russia launched its offensive. Around one million people lived in the regional capital, Dnipro. Russia's defence ministry said forces from a tank unit had "reached the western border of the Donetsk People's Republic and are continuing to develop an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region". The advance of Russian forces into yet another region of Ukraine is both a symbolic and strategic blow to Kyiv's forces after months of setbacks on the battlefield. There was no immediate response from Ukraine to Russia's statement. Moscow in 2022 claimed annexation of the frontline Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it did not have full control over. Already in 2014, it seized the Crimean peninsula following a pro-EU revolution in Kyiv. In a set of peace demands issued to Ukraine at the latest talks, Moscow demanded formal recognition that these regions were part of Russia — something Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out. Tens of thousands have been killed in the three-year offensive, millions forced to flee their homes and cities and villages across eastern Ukraine devastated by relentless air attacks and ground combat. In more than a decade of conflict with Kremlin-backed separatists and the Russian army, Ukraine has never had to fight on the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk region until now. Russia's ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the national security council, said the fresh advance was a warning to Kyiv that it should give in to Russia's demands at peace talks. "Those who do not want to recognise the realities of the war at negotiations, will receive new realities on the ground. Our armed forces have started an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region," he said on social media. Russia's army posted photos showing troops raising the Russian flag over the village of Zorya in Ukraine's Donetsk region, close to the internal border. Ukrainian military personnel previously said that Russia could advance relatively quickly in the largely flat region, given there were fewer natural obstacles or villages that could be used as defensive positions by Kyiv's forces. The region — and in particular the city of Dnipro — have been under persistent Russian strikes for the last three years. Russia used Dnipro as a testing ground for its "experimental" Oreshnik missile in late 2024, claiming to have struck an aeronautics production facility. Earlier on Sunday local Ukrainian officials said one person was killed in the region in an attack on a village close to the frontline. Moscow also continued to accuse Ukraine of refusing to agree to take back the bodies of killed soldiers, after the two countries traded accusations a day earlier for thwarting a prisoner exchange agreed at talks in Istanbul. Russia's defence ministry said trains carrying corpses were headed to the border point, where more than 1,200 had arrived on Saturday in refrigerated trucks. Ukraine said on Saturday that the two sides had never agreed a date or time for some 6,000 bodies in total to be handed back. — AFP
Observer
a day ago
- Observer
US suspends licenses to ship nuclear plant parts to China
WASHINGTON: The US in recent days suspended licenses for nuclear equipment suppliers to sell to China's power plants, according to four people familiar with the matter, as the two countries engage in a damaging trade war. The suspensions were sent to companies by the US Department of Commerce, the people said, and affect export licenses for parts and equipment used with nuclear power plants. Nuclear equipment suppliers are among a wide range of companies whose sales have been restricted over the past two weeks as the US-China trade war shifted from negotiating tariffs to throttling each other's supply chains. It is unclear whether a Thursday call between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would affect the suspensions. The US and China agreed on May 12 to roll back triple digit, tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, but the truce between the two biggest economies quickly went south, with the US claiming China reneged on terms related to rare earth elements, and China accusing the US of "abusing export control measures" by warning that using Huawei Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world violated US export controls. On Friday, Trump said US and Chinese officials would meet again on June 9. The US Department of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment on the nuclear equipment restrictions. On May 28, a spokesperson said the department was reviewing exports of strategic significance to China. "In some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional license requirements while the review is pending," the spokesperson said in a statement. US nuclear equipment suppliers include Westinghouse and Emerson. Westinghouse, whose technology is used in over 400 nuclear reactors around the world, and Emerson, which provides measurement and other tools for the nuclear industry, did not respond to requests for comment. The suspensions affect business worth hundreds of millions of dollars, two of the sources said. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Xi emphasised on his call with Trump that both sides should make good on the agreement reached in Geneva on May 12. China has been "earnestly" executing the agreement, the spokesperson, Liu Pengyu, said in a statement on Friday. US stocks closed higher on Friday, with the Dow and S&P 500 gaining 1% and the Nasdaq climbing 1.2%. 'The US side should acknowledge the progress already made, and remove the negative measures taken against China,' the statement said. China's rare earth export controls are in line with common practice and not targeted at specific countries, it added. They also coincide with Chinese restrictions on critical metals threatening supply chains for manufacturers worldwide, especially America's Big Three automakers. China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth suppliers for the US automakers. But many new restrictions on exports to China have been imposed in the last two weeks, according to sources, and include license requirements for a hydraulic fluids supplier for sales to China. Other license suspensions went to GE Aerospace for jet engines for China's COMAC aircraft, sources said. The US also now requires licenses to ship ethane to China, as Reuters reported first last week. Houston-based Enterprise Product Partners said Wednesday that its emergency requests to complete three proposed cargoes of ethane to China, totaling some 2.2 million barrels, had not been granted. Enterprise said a May 23 requirement for a license to sell butane to China, in addition to the ethane, was subsequently withdrawn. Dallas-based Energy Transfer said it was notified on Tuesday about the new ethane licensing requirement, and planned to apply and file for an emergency authorisation. Other sectors that have been hit with new restrictions include companies that sell electronic design automation software such as Cadence Design Systems. — Reuters
