Taiwan Says China Tested Two Missiles During War Games

A Chinese flag flutters in the wind at a beach on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in China’s Southeast Fujian province on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
A Chinese flag flutters in the wind at a beach on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in China’s Southeast Fujian province on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Taiwan Says China Tested Two Missiles During War Games

A Chinese flag flutters in the wind at a beach on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in China’s Southeast Fujian province on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
A Chinese flag flutters in the wind at a beach on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in China’s Southeast Fujian province on October 15, 2024. (AFP)

China test-fired two missiles during a day of military drills around Taiwan, a Taiwanese security official said, adding they were directed inland and not at the self-ruled island.
Beijing deployed a record number of military aircraft as well as warships and coast guard vessels to encircle Taiwan on Monday, in the fourth round of large-scale drills in just over two years, reported AFP.
During the exercises, which lasted 13 hours, China test-fired two missiles "into the interior", the national security official told a briefing Wednesday on the condition of anonymity.
While the exercises were a "serious" threat, they did not mean that war was "imminent" or "inevitable", the official said.
Though "their ability to switch from exercises to war has been gradually strengthening, we still believe that war is not imminent and it is not inevitable", the official said.
After then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, China unleashed massive military exercises that included sending missiles into the skies around Taiwan.
China's ruling Communist Party has never controlled Taiwan, but it claims the island as part of its territory and has said it will never renounce the use of force to take it.
Beijing has ramped up military pressure on the democratic island in recent years as it seeks to browbeat Taipei into accepting its claims of sovereignty.
China held war games three days after the inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te in May, who Beijing calls a "separatist."
It held another round of drills on Monday after Lai vowed in his National Day speech last Thursday to "resist annexation" and insisted that China and Taiwan were not "not subordinate to each other".
The security official said an "important part" of China's drills on Monday was a blockade exercise against Taiwan.
"We can imagine how serious the threat was to Taiwan that day and how much pressure it put on Taiwan's military," the official said.
"If China actually blockades the Taiwan Strait or Taiwan's major ports, it would cause chaos in the international trade order."



Hunter Biden Suggests Joe Biden's Disastrous Debate was Due to Ambien

FILE PHOTO: Democrat presidential candidate US President Joe Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia, US, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Democrat presidential candidate US President Joe Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia, US, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
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Hunter Biden Suggests Joe Biden's Disastrous Debate was Due to Ambien

FILE PHOTO: Democrat presidential candidate US President Joe Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia, US, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Democrat presidential candidate US President Joe Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia, US, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, said his father's disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump that led to the Democrat stepping aside as presidential candidate was the result of him taking Ambien due to his travel.

"And I'll tell you what, I know exactly what happened in that debate. He (Joe Biden) flew around the world, basically the mileage he could have flown around the world three times. He's 81 years old. He's tired as shit," the former president's son said in an interview released on Monday with YouTube creator Andrew Callaghan.

"They give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights," Hunter Biden added.

Ambien is a medication used for short-term treatment of sleeping problems. Joe Biden's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Monday, Reuters said.

The former president prepared at Camp David with his aides for several days for the debate. Prior to being at Camp David, the Democrat took two European trips and was on the US West Coast for a fundraiser.

The former president's debate performance against then-Republican presidential candidate Trump, in which the Democrat regularly struggled to finish his thoughts, triggered a backlash against Biden's candidacy for the 2024 elections.

Less than a month after that June 27, 2024, debate, Biden stepped aside as presidential candidate after having trailed Trump in the polls. Former Vice President Kamala Harris then became the candidate for the Democrats and went on to lose to Trump in the November elections.

In the days after the debate, the former president blamed his debate performance on jet lag after two overseas trips earlier that month.

In the interview released on Monday, Hunter Biden also expressed frustration with Democratic voices, strategists and lawmakers who abandoned his father's candidacy following the debate.