Taiwan said on
Thursday it has a full understanding of China's military movements on the eve
of the start of landmark weekend charter flights across the Taiwan Strait.
"The military authorities have kept fully abreast of the movements
of the Chinese military and will continue to monitor them closely in the face
of closer exchanges across the Taiwan Strait," Vice Defence Minister Lin
Chen-yi was quoted by the semi-official Central News Agency as saying.
He described the Taiwanese forces as "calm outside, but tense inside"
at a time when weekend charter flights are set to shuttle across the Taiwan
Strait from Friday.
Taiwan and China, rivals since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in
1949, signed a deal on June 13 to operate direct charter flights as a sign of
warming relations after Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Nationalist Party or
Kuomintang was elected president in March and adopted a policy of mending
fences with the mainland.
Pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) parliamentarians said the
flights would only endanger the island as China has never reduced its military
threat against Taiwan.
DPP lawmaker Twu Shing-jer on Thursday cited a local newspaper report that 15
Chinese warplanes recently conducted a drill under the cover of several
commercial passenger jetliners.
The Defence Ministry's Lin said the drill was actually aimed at honing the
Chinese military ability to fight terrorism in the run-up to the Beijing
Olympics in August.
Lin stressed the Taiwanese military is fully prepared and is ready to deal with
any challenge that might arise in the face of the launch of the charter
flights.
Separately on Thursday, the military launched a live-fire
artillery drill in Penghu, an offshore group of islands, to practice the combat
readiness of Taiwanese troops, dpa reported.