{"id":18661,"date":"2018-10-25T17:47:26","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dinnews.in\/?p=18661"},"modified":"2018-10-25T17:47:26","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:47:26","slug":"china-army-to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-retain-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/?p=18661","title":{"rendered":"China army to do &#8216;whatever it takes&#8217; to retain Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify; background: white; margin: 0in -.2in 10.2pt -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-size: 8.0pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #383636; background: white;\">China&#8217;s defence minister warned Thursday that the military would do &#8220;whatever it takes&#8221; to stop any attempt to &#8220;split&#8221; Taiwan from the mainland, days after a pro-independence protest on the island and a US naval operation.<\/span>Beijing considers the self-ruled, democratic island to be part of its territory awaiting reunification, even though the two sides have been governed separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949.&#8221;It is extremely dangerous to repeatedly challenge China&#8217;s limits on this issue,&#8221; Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe said at the Xiangshan Forum, a regional security dialogue hosted by Beijing.&#8221;If anyone tries to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will certainly do whatever it takes, and inevitably take resolute action,&#8221; he added.Tens of thousands of Taiwan independence campaigners took to the streets of Taipei on Saturday for a major rally that was a rebuke to Beijing and a challenge to the island&#8217;s embattled government.Then on Monday US warships conducted &#8220;freedom of navigation&#8221; exercises in the Taiwan Strait, a 180-kilometre wide stretch of water separating the Chinese mainland and Taiwan &#8212; the second such manoeuvre in three months.<span style=\"font-size: 8.0pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #383636;\"><br style=\"font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px;\" \/> <span style=\"background: white;\"><span style=\"font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; word-spacing: 0px;\">The USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Antietam conducted a routine transit to demonstrate US commitment &#8220;to a free and open Indo-Pacific&#8221;, US Colonel Rob Manning said earlier this week.<\/span>Multiple Chinese warships shadowed the two vessels during the transit, following at a safe distance, US defence officials told CNN.<\/span>For its part, Beijing recently conducted a series of military manoeuvres, including a live fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait in April, declaring its willingness to confront Taiwan&#8217;s &#8220;independence forces.&#8221; Washington remains Taipei&#8217;s most powerful unofficial ally and its main arms supplier, despite switching diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.<\/span>The Trump administration has sought closer ties to the island, announcing plans last month to sell it USD 330 million spare parts for several aircraft including the F-16 fighter and the C-130 cargo plane.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China&#8217;s defence minister warned Thursday that the military would do &#8220;whatever it takes&#8221; to stop any attempt to &#8220;split&#8221; Taiwan from the mainland, days after a pro-independence protest on the island and a US naval operation.Beijing considers the self-ruled, democratic island to be part of its territory awaiting reunification, even though the two sides have been governed separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949.&#8221;It is extremely dangerous to repeatedly challenge China&#8217;s limits on this issue,&#8221; Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe said at the Xiangshan&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18665,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions\/18665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}