BEIJING: A ruling Chinese Communist Party newspaper on Monday denounced the passage of a pair of US Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait as a “psychological game,” as the two sides square off over trade and relations with self-governing Taiwan.
The Global Times said in an editorial that the US was adding to tensions by sailing the Japan-based guided missile destroyers USS Mustin and USS Benfold through the 160-kilometer (100-mile)-wide strait that divides Taiwan from mainland China.
Though such missions are not uncommon, both Taiwan and the US made unusual public confirmations of the ships’ passage over the weekend.
Washington is “sending political signals by sending warships through the Taiwan Strait,” said the editorial, headline “US psychological game in Taiwan Strait.”
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be conquered by force if necessary, has criticized recent US moves to strengthen relations with the administration of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Those include the opening of a new office complex for the American Institute in Taiwan, which operates as Washington’s de facto embassy on the island in the absence of formal diplomatic ties that were cut when the US switched recognition to China in 1949.
The US Congress recently passed a law encouraging higher-level government contacts between the sides and closer cooperation between their militaries is also being emphasized.
Such developments come amid rising frictions over what the US considers unfair trading practices by China, the world’s second-largest economy.
The administration of President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports on Friday. China is retaliating with taxes on an equal amount of US products, including soybeans, electric cars and pork.
A former Japanese colony, Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949 and China cut off relations with Tsai’s government after her 2016 inauguration because she refuses to recognize the island as a part of China.
Despite the lack of diplomatic relations, the US remains Taiwan’s chief international ally and American law requires the government to respond to threats to the island.
China paper denounces US Navy ships’ Taiwan Strait passage
China paper denounces US Navy ships’ Taiwan Strait passage
Russia strikes power plant, kills four in Ukraine barrage
KHARKIV: Russia battered Ukraine with more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones early Tuesday, killing four people and pummelling another power plant, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s brittle energy system.
An AFP journalist in the eastern Kharkiv region, where four people were killed, saw firefighters battling a fire at a postal hub and rescue workers helping survivors by lamp light in freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several hundred thousand” households near Kyiv were without power after the strikes, and again called on allies to bolster his country’s air defense systems.
“The world can respond to this Russian terror with new assistance packages for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia must come to learn that cold will not help it win the war,” he added.
Authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding region rolled out emergency power cuts in the hours after the attack, saying freezing temperatures were complicating their work.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider, said Russian forces had struck one of its power plants, saying it was the eighth such attack since October.
The operator did not reveal which of its plants was struck, but said Russia had attacked its power plants over 220 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Daily attacks
Moscow has pummelled Ukraine with daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid height of winter.
The Ukrainian air force said that Tuesday’s bombardment included 25 missiles and 247 drones.
The Kharkiv governor gave the death toll and added that six people were wounded in the overnight hit outside the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv.
White helmeted emergency workers could be seen clambering through the still-smoking wreckage of a building occupied by postal company Nova Poshta, in a video posted by the regional prosecutor’s office.
Within Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a Russian long-range drone struck a medical facility for children, causing a fire. No casualties were reported.
The overnight strikes hit other regions as well, including southern city Odesa.
Residential buildings, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged, with at least five people wounded in two waves of attacks, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said.
Russia’s use last week of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine sparked condemnation from Kyiv’s allies, including Washington, which called it a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation of this war.”
Moscow on Monday said the missile hit an aviation repair factory in the Lviv region and that it was fired in response to Ukraine’s attempt to strike one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences — a claim Kyiv denies and that Washington has said it does not believe happened.
