PLA Conducts Drills Near Taiwan Strait

The drills, according to Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of National Defense, are in response to the current situation across the Taiwan Strait. At a press conference on September 18, Ren said the drills are “justifiable and necessary to safeguard China’s sovereign rights and territorial integrity.”　

Over the past months, Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has challenged the Chinese mainland with frequent exchanges with the US. A day before the PLA drills started, US Deputy Secretary of State Keith Krach visited Taiwan, a move which China said goes against the one-China principle. A pro-independence faction in the DPP even submitted a bill in an attempt to remove the phrase “national unification” in Taiwan’s Constitution.　

The Chinese mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office said at a press conference that the root cause behind the tension across the Strait is the DPP’s attempt to collude with foreign forces for “independence” and that the mainland will not leave any space for these forces.