Taipei
Taiwan’s election next year is a choice between democracy and autocracy, Vice President William Lai said in comments broadcast after China carried out military drills around the island in anger at his visit this month to the United States.
Lai, the front-runner in polls to be Taiwan’s next president at elections in January, made brief stopovers in the United States this month on his way to and from Paraguay, prompting fury in Beijing, which views him as a dangerous separatist given China’s territorial claims over the island.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Sunday morning that in the past 24 hours 25 Chinese air force planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line, which had served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides until Chinese military aircraft began regularly crossing it a year ago.
That included Su-30 and J-11 fighter jets, according to a map the ministry published, though there was no immediate sign China was continuing its exercises on Sunday.
Taiwanese officials had said China was likely to conduct military exercises near the island, using Lai’s U.S. stopovers as a pretext to intimidate voters ahead of next year’s presidential election and make them fear war.
In an interview broadcast late Saturday with a Taiwanese television station but conducted while he was in New York last weekend, Lai said it was not up to China to decide who wins the election.
