AFP,
Beijing
China’s largest-ever military exercises surrounding Taiwan were drawing to a close yesterday following a controversial visit last week to the self-ruled island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Beijing has raged at the trip by Pelosi -- the highest-ranking elected US official to visit Taiwan in decades -- ripping up a series of talks and cooperation agreements with Washington, most notably on climate change and defence.
It has also deployed fighter jets, warships and ballistic missiles around Taiwan in what analysts have described as practice for a blockade and ultimate invasion of the island.
Those exercises were set to end yesterday, though Beijing has not confirmed its conclusion.
Taiwan’s transport ministry said six of the seven “temporary danger zones” China had warned airlines to avoid ceased to be in effect as of noon yesterday, signalling a partial drawdown of the drills.
It said the seventh zone, in waters east of Taiwan, would remain in effect until 10 am local time today. “Relevant flights and sailings can gradually resume,” the ministry said in a statement.
Beijing has also announced fresh drills in the Yellow Sea -- located between China and the Korean peninsula -- to take place until August 15.
An anonymously authored opinion piece published Sunday by state broadcaster CCTV said that after these exercises, China’s military would be able to stage “regular” training drills east of the median line.
That line is an unofficial demarcation in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing does not recognise.
Taiwan has remained defiant throughout China’s sabre-rattling, insisting it will not be cowed by its “evil neighbour”.
But experts have warned the drills have revealed an increasingly emboldened Chinese military capable of carrying out a gruelling blockade of the island as well as obstructing US forces from coming to its aid.
“In some areas, the PLA might even surpass US capabilities,” Grant Newsham, a researcher at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, told AFP, referring to China’s military by its official name.