TAIPEI, July 7 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s preparations to deal with a possible Chinese attack are not a provocation, and the island’s people need to take the threat seriously and prepare now, a senior Taiwanese security official said on Tuesday.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under Beijing’s control, sending its military in the skies and waters around the island on a daily basis.
Taiwan’s government, which rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, has been ramping up military spending and regularly holding civil defence drills under what President Lai Ching-te refers to as whole-of-society resilience efforts.
Speaking at a forum in Taipei, Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, who oversees the resilience programme, said China’s massive defence spending and its ongoing military pressure in the region were real threats.
“People often portray Taiwan’s preparations as provocation toward the other side,” he said.
“I want to take this opportunity to tell everyone: all of China’s preparations have one clear goal — military aggression and external expansion.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China routinely blames Lai for tensions and calls him a “separatist”. It says its military actions are to protect Chinese sovereignty and security.
Lin said Beijing’s actions were the opposite of Taipei’s.
“A country that advocates ‘the two sides of the strait are one family’ does not need to test-fire missiles and rockets in the Taiwan Strait,” he added.
“Taiwan today does not fly a single aircraft or send a single warship to intrude into the other side’s airspace or waters. The one provoking the regional order is not anyone else — it is China.”
Lin said that given the danger posed, government efforts to get people ready for conflict are vital, and said it was wrong to look at what was happening with the war in Ukraine and think it could not happen in Taiwan.
“If we do not act today, strength will not suddenly appear tomorrow,” he added. “If we do not conduct drills today, when a crisis arrives, we may not even know the most basic standard operating procedure.”
There would be immediate peace if China were to give up its military ambitions towards Taiwan, Lin said.
“But if Taiwan now gives up its ability to defend itself, there will no longer be a Taiwan in the world.”
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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