PLA vows to safeguard sovereignty ahead of Tsai-McCarthy meet

Posters released by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command on April 4, 2023 in a social media post highlight the island of Taiwan, as the command vows to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Photo: PLA Eastern Theater Command

Posters released by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command on April 4, 2023 in a social media post highlight the island of Taiwan, as the command vows to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Photo: PLA Eastern Theater Command

Posters released by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command on April 4, 2023 in a social media post highlight the island of Taiwan, as the command vows to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Photo: PLA Eastern Theater Command

Ahead of a planned meeting between Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California on Wednesday, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command vowed to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, with multiple land, naval, air exercises focusing on amphibious landing missions underway.

The PLA will take resolute countermeasures including drills around the island of Taiwan should Tsai and McCarthy indeed meet, analysts predicted.

"Even a bit of China cannot be left behind!" the PLA Eastern Theater Command said in a social media post on Tuesday, paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in liberating the country and rejuvenating the nation a day before Qingming Festival, or the Tomb-Sweeping Day, a day to commemorate ancestors in traditional Chinese culture.

The series of posters released by the PLA Eastern Theater Command highlighted the island of Taiwan, at a time when Tsai and McCarthy are reportedly scheduled to meet in California on Wednesday, a move that will gravely undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

When asked about if China will hold military drills in response to the Tsai-McCarthy meet, Mao Ning, a spokesperson at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a regular press conference on Tuesday that the Chinese side will closely monitor the situation as it develops and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

McCarthy meeting Tsai would mean that the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question becomes more distant, and that the PLA will need to be more prepared than ever to resolve the question through military means, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The closer the collusion between the US and secessionist authorities on the island of Taiwan is, the more urgent the PLA's preparation for a possible non-peaceful solution will become, Song said.

If the bottom line is crossed, the PLA will turn its drills into combat and resolve the question once for all, and the responsibility will fall on the US and Taiwan secessionist authorities to bear, Song said.

Shortly before the scheduled Tsai-McCarthy meet, the PLA forces facing the island of Taiwan continued land, naval and air exercises with amphibious landing missions in mind. The PLA has been holding intensive drills since last week, according to reports.

A combined arms brigade under the PLA 72nd Group Army recently held a realistic combat-oriented beach assault exercise that honed its capabilities to fight and win, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Tuesday,

This unit is an amphibious force that is responsible for cross-sea landing missions, CCTV reported, showing footage in which Type 05 series amphibious armored vehicles boarded the PLA Navy's landing ships, including a Type 071 amphibious landing ship, conducted a beach assault, and then pushed deep into the land during the exercise.

Over the past few days, a vessel-borne helicopter regiment affiliated with the PLA Eastern Theater Command Navy carried out landing exercises in both day and night on the Type 075 amphibious assault ship Guangxi, js7tv.cn, a video news website of the PLA, reported on Wednesday.

Large and intensive sorties of helicopters including Z-9s practiced fast deployment, tactical application and coordinated support among other training courses, effectively enhancing the joint operational capabilities between pilots and sailors, according to the js7tv.cn report.

Another Type 075 amphibious assault ship, the Hainan, recently carried out a sea-air joint exercise in waters to the west of South China's Guangdong Province, giving the vessel more accurate amphibious delivery capabilities, according to a separate CCTV report on Monday.

"Every achievement the Hainan has made paves the way for landing operations," Shen Wei, executive officer of the Hainan, said in the report.

The defense authority on the island of Taiwan said on Wednesday that it detected 14 PLA aircraft and three PLA vessels around the island of Taiwan over the past day, and Japan's Defense Ministry Joint Staff said on Tuesday that the country spotted a PLA Navy Type 052C destroyer and a Type 054A frigate sail through the Miyako Strait a day before into the West Pacific, to the eastern side of the island of Taiwan.

The island's defense authority also said that the aircraft carrier Shandongof the PLA Navy has sailed through the Bashi Channeland past the waters southwest of the island of Taiwan, as it started its first exercise in the West Pacific on Wednesday.

Fujian Maritime Safety Administration announced on Wednesday that a joint patrol and special inspection operation has started in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Straits. The operation features a law enforcement flotilla that secures the safety of commercial ships in the region, media reports said.

The PLA could continue to organize large-scale and long-lasting military exercises around the island of Taiwan should McCarthy meet with Tsai, another Chinese mainland expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The intensity of the exercises could depend on the outcome of the meeting, the expert said, noting that they will likely be similar to but also different from the PLA's exercises responding to former US house speaker Nancy Pelosi's provocative visit to the island of Taiwan in August 2022.

The basic concept is that the PLA countermeasures will permanently push forward the progress of national reunification, and US and "Taiwan independence" forces will not get what they want, the expert said.