Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday that recent drills with Chinese forces have made Taiwan's mi...
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| Image: Reuters |
China held war games right after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taipei last month. China was upset by what it saw as a strong show of U.S. support for the island Beijing claims as its own territory. Since then, China has kept doing military things close to Taiwan.
Tsai told people in the air force at the Hualien air base on Taiwan's east coast that the situation around the Taiwan Strait was still tense and that the threat was still there.
"When faced with challenges, our national military has responded calmly to the enemy's plans to invade and has tenaciously defended the country's security," she said, according to a transcript of the speech released by the presidential office.
"I think that after this period of combat readiness missions, our military's fighting skills are more developed and its fighting power is stronger."
Tsai also said she was "very proud" of the military.
Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16s live at the Hualien base, which has hangars cut into the side of a mountain.
China has much bigger and better armed forces than Taiwan. Tsai has been in charge of a modernization programme and has made it a top priority to spend more on defence.
Taiwan's national day is on October 10. This year, the theme is defence, and the slogan is "You and I join together to protect the land and defend the country," which was announced on Tuesday by the event's organisers.
On that day, Tsai will lead a military parade and give a speech.
Taiwan's democratically elected government says that since the People's Republic of China has never ruled the island, it has no right to claim it or decide its future. Only Taiwan's people can do that.
China has never given up the idea of using force to take over Taiwan.
