Xi ‘let missiles fall in Japanese waters’

A man reads a newspaper report on military exercises near Taiwan by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, at a newspaper stand in Beijing on Aug 8. (Reuters Photo)

TOKYO: Chinese President Xi Jinping personally decided to let ballistic missiles launched by the military during recent drills near Taiwan fall in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to deter Tokyo’s interference in any cross-strait contingency, according to sources close to the matter.

Xi, who heads the Central Military Commission, the highest decision-making organ of China’s armed forces, ditched a plan to avoid conducting exercises last week in waters overlapping the Japanese EEZ to make the training in six areas encircling Taiwan more combat-oriented, the sources said.