Taiwan continues military drills amid tensions with China

Taipei fires howitzers and target flares as part of the military exercise in the island’s southernmost county of Pingtung, says army.

Taiwan’s army has held another live-fire drill after Beijing ended its largest-ever military exercises around the island, as it vowed to bring the island under its control.

Taiwan fired howitzers and target flares as part of the drill on Thursday morning, Lou Woei-jye, the spokesperson for Taiwan’s Eighth Army Corps, told the AFP news agency.

“We have two goals for the drills, the first is to certify the proper condition of the artillery and their maintenance condition and the second is to confirm the results of last year,” Lou said, referring to annual drills.

The exercise in Taiwan’s southernmost county of Pingtung began at 0830 am local time (0030 GMT) and lasted about an hour, he said.

Artillery tucked in from the coast was lined up side by side, with armed soldiers in units firing the howitzers out to sea one after the other, a livestream showed.

Taiwan held a similar drill on Tuesday in Pingtung. Both included the deployments of hundreds of troops, the military said.

The military has played down their significance, saying they were already scheduled and were not in response to China’s war games.