China war games will rattle saber at Taiwan

Associated Press

BEIJING — Large-scale Chinese war games that include a practice invasion of an island near Taiwan are a warning not to underestimate Beijing’s determination to use force to rein in Taiwan, state media said Friday.

Taiwan’s government said the drills code named "Liberation One," which start this month on Dongshan island off the southeastern Chinese coast, opposite Taiwan, were routine and no cause for alarm.

But they will be China’s first large-scale war games since the election of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian last May and will be among the largest ever by its 2.5 million member People’s Liberation Army, the state-run Beijing Morning Post said.

Nearly 10,000 troops have been massed for the exercises, including missile units, amphibious tanks, submarines, warships, marine units and Russian-made Su-27 aircraft — among the most modern weapons in China’s growing arsenal, the newspaper said.

China dislikes Chen for his past support for Taiwanese independence and his refusal to endorse its view that China and Taiwan are one country. Taiwan and China divided in 1949, and Beijing threatens to use force to regain control over what it considers a breakaway province.

The maneuvers "demonstrate the Chinese government’s determination to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity," the newspaper said.

A report on a Web site operated by the government’s Xinhua News Agency said they were "a military warning" to Chen’s administration.

It was not immediately clear if the exercises mark a shift in Beijing’s attitude toward Chen, but they are a traditional method by which China registers its anger with Taiwan’s leaders.

The exercises include a mock attack on an aircraft carrier, a drill apparently designed with U.S. forces in mind. When Beijing held threatening war games and lobbed missiles into waters near Taiwan in 1996, Washington responded by sending a pair of aircraft carriers to the area.