China craft circles Taiwan

US war games to include Japan, Australia

BEIJING/TAIPEI, April 19, (RTRS): Chinese aircraft have again flown around self-ruled Taiwan in what China’s air force on Thursday called a “sacred mission”, as Taiwan denounced its big neighbour over what it called a policy of military intimidation.

Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as Chinese territory, is one of China’s most sensitive issues and a potential military flashpoint.

China has ramped up military exercises around Taiwan in the past year, including flying bombers and other military aircraft around the island.

More recently, China has been incensed by comments by Taiwan Premier William Lai that it deemed were in support of Taiwan independence, though Taipei says Lai’s position remains that the status quo between Taiwan and the mainland should be maintained.

In a statement on its microblog, the Chinese air force said H-6K bombers had “recently” flown a patrol around Taiwan.

“The motherland is in our hearts, and the jewelled island is in the bosom of the motherland,” an H-6K captain, Zhai Peisong, was quoted as saying in the statement, using another name for Taiwan.

“Defending the beautiful rivers and mountains of the motherland is the sacred mission of air force pilots.”

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said two Chinese H-6K bombers had flown around the island on Wednesday afternoon, passing first through the Miyako Strait, to Taiwan’s northeast, then back to base via the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines.

Late on Wednesday, Chinese state media said the military had also conducted live-fire military drills with helicopters along its southeast coast after increasingly stern warnings by Beijing for Taiwan to toe the line, though the exercises were more low key than had been flagged in state media.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the island’s “independence separatist activities” were the biggest threat

deals, to New Delhi’s unease.

In 2016 Nepal’s then prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, sealed deals with Beijing to use Chinese roads and ports, seeking to reduce Nepal’s dependence on India for trade and transit.

While relations between China and India have been strained in recent years, with to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

“No force and no person should underestimate our resolute resolve and strong ability to defend the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the office said.

Taiwan’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council said China’s military exercise — which it described as routine and small scale — as well as the Chinese air force fly-by, amounted to “military intimidation”.

“Our determination to defend the country’s sovereign dignity will never give in to any threat or inducement of force,” it said.

China had said the live-fire drills would happen on Wednesday off the city of Quanzhou, in between two groups of islands close to China’s coast but which Taiwan has controlled since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war.

Chinese state media has said the drills were a direct response to “provocations” by Taiwan leaders related to what China fears are moves by the island to push for formal independence.

MANILA:

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Annual US-Philippine military exercises involving thousands of troops will be expanded for the first time to include other countries, with Japanese and Australian forces invited to join what will be the 34th edition of the war games.

The Philippines and the United States have been holding the “Balikatan” (shoulder-to-shoulder) drills annually to test the readiness of their militaries to respond to threats that include natural disasters and militant extremist attacks.

The United States embassy in Manila said in a statement on Thursday Australia and Japan, two US allies countries with strategic partnerships with the Philippines, would join the exercises taking place in multiple locations on the main island of Luzon, starting on May 7.

spats over everything from their disputed border with Tibet, current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to re-set ties and will visit China in June for a regional summit.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Nepal Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali in Beijing, Wang dismissed the notion that Nepal had to carefully balance its relations with China and India. (RTRS)

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Police at the helm of the Philippine war on drugs were given top posts in the national force on Thursday, indicating no let-up in a brutal crackdown that has caused international alarm, and defined Rodrigo Duterte’s 21-month presidency.

The job of national police chief was given to Oscar Albayalde, a strict disciplinarian who has been in charge of Metro Manila, where the vast majority of