BEIJING, August 3. /TASS/. Military exercises in the Taiwan Strait that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) scheduled for August 4 may resolve the Taiwan issue by force, according to Lu Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“Based on the released information about the PLA drills from August 4 to 7, the six locations have already encircled the island of Taiwan from all directions, and it could be a series of unprecedented military exercises aimed at realizing reunification by force and also to fight against the external forces that could interrupt the reunification process,” The Global Times newspaper quoted him as saying.
He stressed that Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei “totally ignored China’s warning, it is certain that the status quo of the Taiwan Straits situation has been broken.”
A Beijing-based senior expert on international relations who asked for anonymity told the newspaper that China’s government really knows the importance of “strategic patience.” “So this time, China will teach the US a lesson again, as it will use US mistakes to comprehensively change the Taiwan Straits situation, just as it did in Hong Kong in recent years,” he noted.
Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday. Her trip is the first visit of a Speaker of the US House of Representatives to Taiwan in the last 25 years. Beijing repeatedly cautioned Washington that if Pelosi visited the island, this would have repercussions and China would take severe measures.
Taiwan has been governed by its local administration since 1949 when the remaining Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled to the island after suffering a defeat in China’s civil war. Since then, Taiwan has preserved the flag and some other symbols of the Republic of China that had existed in mainland China before the Communists came to power. Beijing regards the island as one of its provinces and this position is supported by most countries, including Russia.