Taiwan | Pakistan

China launched missiles and deployed dozens of fighter aircraft and navy vessels around Taiwan on Tuesday for a second day of live-fire drills aimed at simulating a blockade of the self-ruled island’s key ports and assaults on maritime targets. Taipei, which slammed the two-day war games as “highly provocative and reckless”, claimed the manoeuvre failed to impose a blockade on the island. China claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has refused to rule out military action to seize the island. AFP journalists in Pingtan, a Chinese island at the closest point to Taiwan’s main island, saw a volley of rockets blast into the air at around 9:00am (6am PKT) on Tuesday, leaving trails of white smoke. At least 10 were launched in quick succession, sending a booming sound reverberating across the sky and drawing tourists towards the seafront to snap photos and videos on their phones. Taiwanese authorities counted 27 rockets fired by Chinese forces on Tuesday. A Taiwanese Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jet ...

China’s military moved army, naval, air force and artillery units around Taiwan on Monday for its “Justice Mission 2025” drills, as the island vowed to defend democracy and mobilised troops to rehearse repelling a potential Chinese attack. The Eastern Theatre Command announced the drills will involve live-fire exercises on Tuesday, in a statement containing a graphic demarcating five zones surrounding the island that will be under sea and air space restrictions for 10 hours from 8am (5am PKT). This marks China’s sixth major round of war games since 2022 after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the democratically governed island, and follows a rise in Chinese rhetoric over Beijing’s territorial claims after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo. The exercises began 11 days after the United States announced $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever weapons package for the island, drawing a prote...

China claims Taiwan and won’t rule out force, but the island says only its people can decide their future.

Cheng Li-wun elected new KMT leader as Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims amid tensions

Typhoon Ragasa, the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year, barreled towards tens of millions of people in southern China on Wednesday after killing 14 people in Taiwan, leaving scores missing and lashing Hong Kong with ferocious winds and heavy rains. Some 129 people are missing in Taiwan’s eastern Hualien county, after a barrier lake overflowed and sent a wall of water into a town, the Taiwan fire department said on Wednesday, with Ragasa’s outer rim having drenched the island since Monday. Many residents in the tourist town of Guangfu complained there was insufficient warning from Taiwan authorities, who are used to moving people out of potential danger zones swiftly on the island, which is frequently hit by typhoons. As rains inundated Taiwan, Hong Kong grappled with huge waves that crashed over areas of the Asian financial hub’s eastern and southern shoreline, breaking into white-water streams as they rushed along pavements and submerged some roads alongside residential properties. At the Fulle...