{"id":42967,"date":"2019-01-19T12:01:16","date_gmt":"2019-01-19T17:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42967"},"modified":"2019-01-19T12:01:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T17:01:16","slug":"taiwan-holds-live-fire-military-exercise-amid-fears-of-china-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42967","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan Holds Live-Fire Military Exercise Amid Fears Of China Invasion\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"block-zerohedge-page-title\" class=\"block block-core block-page-title-block\">\n<h3 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-01-19\/taiwan-holds-live-fire-military-exercise-amid-fears-china-invasion\"><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Taiwan Holds Live-Fire Military Exercise Amid Fears Of China Invasion\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"block-zerohedge-content\" class=\"block block-system block-system-main-block\">\n<article class=\"node node--type-article node--view-mode-full\" role=\"article\" data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen-2077925_22=\"2040\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-2077925_22=\"2041\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-2077925_22=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-2077925_22=\"1\">\n<footer class=\"node__meta\">\n<div class=\"submission-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/footer>\n<div class=\"node__content\">\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>Taiwan on Thursday conducted live-fire war drills\u00a0along its west coast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/taiwan-holds-live-fire-military-drills-01172019110731.html\">amid<\/a> mounting fears that\u00a0Chinese President Xi Jinping could use\u00a0military force to annex the\u00a0democratic island.<\/p>\n<p>Artillery batteries, self-propelled artillery weapons, attack helicopters, and main battle tanks\u00a0fired at targets off the west coast city of Taichung, while the island&#8217;s air force operated French-made Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter jets.<\/p>\n<p>The war exercise followed a new report from the Pentagon outlining\u00a0concerns about Beijing\u2019s expanding\u00a0military might,\u00a0including a possible invasion of Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/china%20invasion.jpg?itok=9bF6tz-Z\" data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/china%20invasion.jpg?itok=9bF6tz-Z\" data-link-option=\"0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/china%20invasion.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_desktop\/public\/inline-images\/china%20invasion.jpg?itok=9bF6tz-Z 1x\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"246\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"7957f0f9-a9f2-4946-990d-de0c22cb6468\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;China &#8230; believes that U.S. military presence &#8230; in Asia seeks to constrain China\u2019s rise and interfere with China\u2019s sovereignty, particularly in a Taiwan conflict scenario,&#8221; the Pentagon report said.<\/p>\n<p>In a meeting with US\u00a0Chief of Naval Operations\u00a0Admiral John Richardson in Beijing on Tuesday, China\u2019s chief of staff Li Zuocheng warned about\u00a0foreign forces coming to Taiwan\u2019s help.<\/p>\n<p>The US is\u00a0Taiwan\u2019s primary source of heavy military hardware and\u00a0legally bound to respond if China invades the island.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/china%20invasion%20drill%20.png?itok=N64Gt1oe\" data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/china%20invasion%20drill%20.png?itok=N64Gt1oe\" data-link-option=\"0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/china%20invasion%20drill%20.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_desktop\/public\/inline-images\/china%20invasion%20drill%20.png?itok=N64Gt1oe 1x\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"242\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"bb69d88d-51c1-4272-b41f-297c946c23b2\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>China&#8217;s armed forces\u00a0will \u201cpay any price\u201d to\u00a0ensure China\u2019s sovereignty,\u00a0Zuocheng\u00a0told Richardson at their meeting.\u00a0China considers Taiwan,\u00a0which split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949, as part of Chinese territory.<\/p>\n<p>The trigger for the military drills could have been due to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, recently rejected requests from President Xi for the island to\u00a0move towards &#8220;unification&#8221; with China.<\/p>\n<p>Major General Chen Chung-chi, the spokesman for Taiwan&#8217;s Defense Ministry said\u00a0the military is updating its exercises to reflect the possibility\u00a0of an amphibious invasion by China.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We exercise the way wars are fought &#8230; so that we will be capable and confident in the defense of our country,&#8221; Chen told journalists in Taipei on Wednesday. &#8220;We are ready to face an enemy threat at any time.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taiwan Holds Live-Fire Military Exercise Amid Fears Of China Invasion\u00a0 Taiwan on Thursday conducted live-fire war drills\u00a0along its west coast amid mounting fears that\u00a0Chinese President Xi Jinping could use\u00a0military force to annex the\u00a0democratic island. Artillery batteries, self-propelled artillery weapons, attack helicopters, and main battle tanks\u00a0fired at targets off the west coast city of Taichung, while [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23991,130,24042,19921,620,1442,827,6392],"class_list":["post-42967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-admiral-john-richardson","tag-china","tag-li-zuocheng","tag-live-fire-military-drill","tag-pentagon","tag-taiwan","tag-united-states","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42968,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42967\/revisions\/42968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}