China’s war-game almost-invasions of Taiwan are getting closer to being an actual invasion of Taiwan, judging by a May 23, 2024 Reuters story, with “mock bombing of foreign vessels, started just three days after Lai took office on Monday.”
A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that several Chinese bombers conducted mock attacks on foreign vessels near the eastern end of the Bashi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, practicing how to seize “total control” of areas west of the so-called first island chain….
The official, speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the situation, said several Chinese coastguard boats also conduced “harassment” drills off Taiwan’s east coast, including mock inspections of civilian ships….
The Chinese theatre command showed an animated video on Friday on its WeChat social media account of missiles being launched at Taiwan from the ground, air and sea, which then slam into the cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung and Hualien in balls of flame. CCTV later said China staged mock missile attacks on Taiwan using dozens of missiles.
“Sacred weapons to kill independence,” read words in red, written in the traditional Chinese characters Taiwan uses, at the end of animation.
The U.S. Navy, which has ships in the area, says it’s keeping an eye on things. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung says China’s latest threatening gesture doesn’t change anything. “We will not make any concessions because of this Chinese military exercise….”
That would be more than enough news. But on the second day of China’s latest military intimidation of Taiwan, tens of thousands of Taiwanese people came out to protest “contentious Taiwan parliament reforms.” The reforms, supported by opposition parties, including the Kuomintang, would, says Reuters, “give lawmakers more oversight over the government. The DPP says more debate is needed.” The DPP is the Democratic Progressive Party, President Lai’s party.
The reforms will give lawmakers the power to ask the military, private companies or individuals to disclose information deemed relevant by parliamentarians.
They will also criminalise contempt of parliament by government officials and make the offence punishable with prison terms. But the DPP says there is no clear definition of contempt of parliament….
Friday night’s protesters, many of them students or young professionals, listened to speeches and carried banners accusing the opposition of trying to ram through the reforms, and even working in concert with China.
DPP lawmaker Wang Ting-yu says the proposed legislation “gives lawmakers the power to punish people. Did people vote us in so that we can punish people?” Meanwhile, the KMT says the DPP is wrongly trying to “spread rumours and paint them red.”
One protester, Mucha Kung, wants to know whether the lawmakers supporting the legislation are “becoming the Chinese Communist Party’s spokespeople in Taiwan, trying to erode our democracy.” Another, Fong Jye-mei, seems to simply assume that the opposition lawmakers who are trying to push through the legislation are working for China. “I think China is the one that needs reform. Why do they have to meddle with us when they themselves do not have a democratic system?”
A DPA International story about the controversy sports the strange headline “100,000 people protest against chaos at Taiwan’s legislature.” The chaos is happening because the DPP lawmakers so vigorously oppose the changes being championed by the opposition lawmakers. But the protesters are not protesting the “chaos,” they’re protesting the legislation.
