Taiwan Says China's Military Threats Will Encourage More U.S. Support

China's continuing threats to use force against Taiwan will only increase support from the United States and others, Taipei said this week after Beijing launched a pointed military exercise to protest a visit by members of Congress. The congressional delegation, or CODEL, led by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina triggered vocal remonstration before and after they met Taiwan's leaders including President Tsai Ing-wen and her foreign and defense ministers.

In the hours before the CODEL landed in Taipei on Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian warned the U.S. was going down a "dangerous path" by endorsing Tsai's government, which rejects the Chinese position that Taiwan ought to be ruled from Beijing.

The following day, the PLA's Eastern Theater Command announced a series of live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait in response to America's "deliberate provocation." At a regular media briefing on Friday, Zhao called the military exercise "a countermeasure" to Washington's "recent negative actions" regarding Taiwan, which has grown closer to the U.S. as Chinese leader Xi Jinping's iron grip on power ushers in a more assertive foreign policy.

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