Military analysts say increasingly aggressive ‘island encirclement’ exercises are designed to send message to independence-leaning leadership
 
South China Morning Post
Date: 14 May, 2018
By: Minnie Chan

Mainland China’s military will step up the pressure on Taiwan with more military exercises designed to send a warning to the island’s independence-leaning president, defence experts have said.

Their comments follow the People’s Liberation Army’s increasingly aggressive “island encirclement” drills over Taiwan, which on Friday saw the air force sending its planes in opposite directions around the island for the first time.

Song Zhongping, a former member of the PLA’s second artillery corps, the rocket wing’s predecessor, said that to reinforce the warning to Tsai Ing-wen’s administration, the mainland military would conduct targeted joint operational drills involving ground forces, the navy and the air force to strengthen its presence in the Taiwan Strait.   [FULL  STORY]