Taiwan President Lai Ching-te again extended goodwill towards and offered cooperation with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, saying he looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation.
\nChina, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills on Thursday and Friday, calling them \u201cpunishment\u201d after Lai\u2019s inauguration speech on Monday which Beijing called another push for the island\u2019s formal independence.
\nChina has repeatedly lambasted Lai as a \u201cseparatist\u201d. Lai rejects Beijing\u2019s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan\u2019s people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.
\nSpeaking at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the southern city of Tainan, Lai called on China to \u201cshare the heavy responsibility of regional stability with Taiwan\u201d, according to comments provided by his party.
\nLai, who won election in January, said he also \u201clooked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation with China via exchanges and cooperation, creating mutual benefit and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity\u201d.
\nHe thanked the United States and other countries for their expressions of concern about the Chinese exercises.
\n\u201cThe international community will not accept any country creating waves in the Taiwan Strait and affecting regional stability,\u201d Lai added.
\nTaiwan\u2019s government has condemned China\u2019s war games.
\nOver the past four years, China has staged regular military activities around Taiwan as it seeks to pressure the island\u2019s government.
\nOn Sunday, Taiwan\u2019s defence ministry said the garrison on Erdan islet, part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands that sit next to China\u2019s Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, had discovered a \u201ccrude\u201d cardboard box containing paper with political slogans on it, written in the simplified Chinese characters used in China.
\nThe ministry said the box was suspected of being dropped by a drone outside the line of sight, adding, \u201cIt is a typical cognitive operation trick.\u201d
\nIn 2022, Taiwan shot down a drone off Kinmen after complaining of days of harassment.
\nChina\u2019s defence ministry did not answer calls outside of office hours.
\nChina\u2019s military has kept up a barrage of propaganda videos and animations directed at Taiwan since the exercises began.
\nIts Eastern Theatre Command, which ran the drills, showed a video on Sunday of rockets firing in what it referred to in English as \u201ccross-strait lethality\u201d.
\n(Reuters)military drills. China, Taiwan, military drills<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te extended goodwill towards and offered cooperation with China following Chinese war games near the island. China carried out military drills in response to Lai’s inauguration speech, which Beijing viewed as a push for Taiwan’s independence. Lai rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty and has offered talks, but has been rejected. Lai called on China to share responsibility for regional stability and expressed a desire for mutual understanding and reconciliation through cooperation. Taiwan condemned China’s war games and discovered a cardboard box with political slogans written in simplified Chinese characters suspected to be dropped by a drone. China’s military has been releasing propaganda videos directed at Taiwan since the drills began.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6497,209,486,2460,3475,1600,4081,4922,415,7341,9191,187,3234,1346,3504,10092,7701,4593,4371,5328,4834,4843,3775,4927,2082,6472,8257,5515,6735,7608,7558,4778,11252,1026,226,544,2389,293,6305,18],"class_list":["post-13196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-benefit","tag-box","tag-china","tag-community","tag-cooperation","tag-election","tag-future","tag-goodwill","tag-government","tag-harassment","tag-inauguration","tag-international","tag-international-community","tag-meeting","tag-military","tag-military-drills","tag-mutual-understanding","tag-office","tag-operation","tag-party","tag-peace","tag-president","tag-pressure","tag-progressive","tag-punishment","tag-reconciliation","tag-response","tag-responsibility","tag-rockets","tag-shot","tag-speech","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwan-president","tag-talks","tag-theatre","tag-united-states","tag-video","tag-war","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n