PLA, CCG drills aim to deter Taiwan separatist forces: commentators

China

PLA, CCG drills aim to deter Taiwan separatist forces: commentators

2024-10-14 22:33 Last Updated At：10-15 16:47

The drills conducted by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the China Coast Guard (CCG) on Monday aim to deter Taiwan separatist forces led by the region’s leader Lai Ching-te, according to Taiwan commentators.

The PLA's Eastern Theater Command on Monday sent its army, navy, air force and rocket force to conduct "Joint Sword-2024B" drills in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of the island of Taiwan.

The media in Taiwan reported the PLA drills, calling them a response to Lai's separatist speech delivered on Oct 10.

"I think the mainland drills are mainly aimed at deterrence. Why did it conduct the drills after Lai's speech on Oct 10? We know there are some expressions different from his previous remarks, but his words about the new 'two states' theory remain those that he has repeated many times since taking office. Of course, it incurred the mainland's deterrence against the Taiwan separatist forces," said Yu Tzu-hsiang, a professor at Shih Hsin University.

The CCG announced that its formations 2901, 1305, 1303 and 2102 conducted law enforcement patrols in the waters surrounding Taiwan island on Monday. On the same day, the Fujian Coast Guard said that it organized a formation of vessels to conduct comprehensive law enforcement patrols in the waters near the islands of Dongyin and Matsu.

Hsieh Chih-chuan, a Taiwan current affairs commentator, said the coast guard patrols show the mainland's capability of fully sealing off Taiwan.

"This time the mainland also dispatched four coast guard ships to sail around Taiwan and block all of its six seaports. The mainland's operations aim to not only deter Taiwan separatist forces, but tell Taiwan that the mainland has the capability of fully blocking the surrounding areas of Taiwan, including all ports of Taiwan. The operations also tell the external forces that 'you want to come here? no way!'" said Hsieh.

China creates 11.98 million new urban jobs in first 11 months

2024-12-30 22:24 Last Updated At：22:37

China created a total of 11.98 million new urban jobs in the first 11 months of the year, official data showed on Friday.

Since the beginning of this year, the employment situation has been generally stable among young people, including college graduates, while the scale of rural migrant workers continued to grow, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

This year, the ministry continued to implement policies such as reducing insurance charges of unemployment or work-related injury, which are levied on enterprises, and strengthening support for business entities in areas including the private sector and micro, small and medium enterprises.

A total of 1.32 million internship positions were released this year. In addition, vocational training subsidies were issued to over 12 million people, with migrant workers as the majority, and 150,000 enterprise-based apprentices have benefited from subsidy policies.

Moreover, 679 vocational schools have adopted an integrated work-study model that merges the work process with the learning, and have trained more than 18,000 teachers under the project.

During the January-September period, a total of 80.2 billion yuan (11.2 billion U.S. dollars) was issued in employment subsidies to enterprises nationwide to encourage employment, the data showed on Friday.