TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told CNN that the latest military exercises show that China is preparing to "launch a war against Taiwan."

During three days of military exercises around Taiwan dubbed "Joint Sword," China deployed 232 military aircraft and 32 naval vessels in and around Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) simulating strikes on the country, while also conducting live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. In an interview with CNN broadcast on Tuesday (April 11), Jim Sciutto asked Wu whether China is menacing Taiwan with an all-out war.

Wu said, "Yes, indeed. Look at the military exercises, and also their rhetoric, they seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan." Wu then stressed that the core tenet of the U.N. Charter when dealing with international disputes is the use of peaceful means and "Beijing's way of handling the differences between Taiwan and China is through coercion, military threat, and the threat to use force against Taiwan," which Taipei finds unacceptable and has condemned.

When asked whether Taiwan has sufficient weaponry to defend itself, Wu said Taiwan has been purchasing arms from the U.S. for many years, the Biden administration has announced nine batches of arms sales to the country, and Taiwan has increased military training. The foreign minister argued that "determination is more important than the military equipment," and he warned that such a war would impact the global economy and called on the international community to tell China to "stop threatening war and stop preparing for war against Taiwan."

Given that the exercises followed President Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) landmark meeting with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Wu told NBC News that "China cannot dictate how our friends internationally would interact with Taiwan." The news agency cited Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) as saying that the PLA's drills have "destabilized the region" and accused Beijing of using Tsai's overseas trip as an "excuse" to carry out exercises which have "severely jeopardized the security of the surrounding region."

In an interview with Fox News, Wu described the three days of PLA maneuvers as "very serious." Wu said that the missions conducted by Chinese warplanes and warships came very close to Taiwan and cautioned that "Any accident might spark an uncontrollable war between Taiwan and China. And if other countries are trying to intervene, it might be the start of a war of great scale."