Taiwan’s president pledges to defend island’s sovereignty after Chinese military drills

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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te on Thursday vowed to defend the self-ruled island’s sovereignty in the face of China’s “expansionist ambitions,” days after Beijing wrapped up live-fire military drills near its shores.

“In the face of China’s rising expansionist ambitions, the international community is watching to see whether the Taiwanese people have the resolve to defend themselves,” Lai said in his New Year’s address.

“As president, my stance has always been clear: to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, strengthen national defense and the resilience of the whole society, and comprehensively construct an effective deterrence and democratic defense mechanism,” he added.

Lai’s comments came days after China wrapped up live-fire drills around Taiwan featuring rocket launches, aircraft and warships. Beijing had expressed anger at a planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, as well as at Japan’s new leader’s comments that Tokyo could intervene in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

China sees Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if necessary. A former Japanese colony, Taiwan has been governed independently from the mainland since 1949, when the Nationalist Party lost a civil war against the Chinese Communist Party and retreated to the island.

Lai's speech was met angrily in Beijing, where a spokesperson for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office called the president “a saboteur of peace, a troublemaker and a warmonger,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.

“No matter what Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party authorities say or do, they cannot change the fact that Taiwan is part of China," said spokesperson Chen Binhua.

The planned arms sale, valued at more than $11 billion, is the U.S.’s largest so far to Taiwan. It includes missiles, drones, artillery systems and military software.

The United States is obligated by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

China’s leader Xi Jinping called Taiwan’s eventual annexation “ unstoppable " during his own televised New Year’s address on Wednesday.

Taiwan last year announced a special $40 billion budget for arms purchases, including to build an air defense system with high-level detection and interception capabilities called the Taiwan Dome.

The budget will be allocated over eight years, from 2026 to 2033, and comes after Lai already pledged to raise defense spending to 5% of the island’s GDP, as part of his strategy amid China’s threats of invasion.

“Facing China’s serious military ambitions, Taiwan has no time to wait,” Lai said.

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Mistreanu reported from Beijing.