Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited a naval base on Monday to express her gratitude to sailors and marines for their dedication to protecting the island amid renewed threats from China, committing not to allow the loss of any single inch of territory.
Tsai’s tough talk comes against the backdrop of increased Chinese military exercises and near-daily incursions by Chinese military aircraft into airspace close to Taiwan. China claims the island, which broke away amid civil war in 1949, as its territory and threatens to use its large military to bring it under Beijing’s control.
Tsai has made boosting Taiwan’s indigenous defence capability a central pillar of her defence policy, while also buying billions of dollars in weapons from the US, including F-16 fighter jets, armed drones, rocket systems, and missiles capable of hitting both ships and land targets.
