Mick Ryan
Just last week, Taiwan celebrated its national day. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te gave an address on 10 October that included a statement that China "has no right to represent Taiwan" and that his mission as president would be to "resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty."
After the speech by the President of Taiwan, the predictable Chinese Communist Party response arrived. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning stated that Lai had tried to “sell the fallacy of Taiwan independence,” and accused him of a “pernicious intention to escalate tensions across the Taiwan Strait for political gain.”
As I wrote in my last weekly update, there was some speculation in the wake of the Chinese statement that the PLA would use Lai's National Day speech as a pretext to launch military exercises around Taiwan, similar to the Joint Swords 2024A exercise conducted in May this year. While PLA activity around Taiwan immediately after the Taiwanese president’s speech held steady for a couple of days at an average of 10-20 aircraft and 4-7 ships, the situation changed in the past 24 hours.
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