China's exercise in Taiwan Strait among reasons for postponing Ramstein meeting – expert

China's conducting of military exercises, code-named Joint Sword-2024B, to “deter separatism” in the Taiwan Strait was one of the reasons for postponing the meeting on providing weapons to Ukraine.

At the same time, these exercises were beneficial to China in the context of bolstering its influence in the BRICS format, whose summit is scheduled to commence on October 22.

This opinion was expressed in a comment to Ukrinform by Natalia Tymoshenko, head of the Center for Geopolitical Processes and International Security Studies.

“China's conducting of such large-scale military exercises to ‘deter separatism’ in the Taiwan Strait and surrounding regions, in our opinion, was one of the reasons for postponing the meeting on providing weapons to Ukraine. For our Western partners, and the United States in particular, this is an acceptance of the very likely emergence of a third hot spot after Ukraine and Israel,” she said.

At the same time, the expert believes that after this demonstration of force, Beijing sent a positive signal in establishing relations between China and the United States.

“The exercise ended less than 10 hours after it commenced. World leaders made statements that were generally restrained in nature. Ultimately, it was revealed that China's ‘panda diplomacy’ had resumed: two pandas left on a special flight from the Dujiangyang Research Center to the Washington Zoo. This suggests a positive step towards the establishment of relations between China and the United States, despite ongoing tensions in the trade, technological and geopolitical spheres,” Tymoshenko said.

As reported by Ukrinform, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) on October 14 launched another large-scale exercise around Taiwan involving all branches of the armed forces, including the Air Force, Navy, and Rocket Force. The Joint Sword-2024B military drills involved units and formations of the PLA's Eastern Theater Command, which has Taiwan and the strait between the mainland and the island as its operational area of responsibility.

The Ramstein meeting and the meeting of leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Germany, scheduled for October 12, have been postponed. Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden canceled his visit to Germany due to the serious situation in his country related to the approaching hurricane.

Photo: uacrisis.org