Taiwan authorities and the United States Navy, not the Chinese military, should be blamed for this week's plunge in the Hong Kong and Taiwan stock markets, a government spokesman said yesterday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said China's military exercises, which began last Friday, were 'normal and routine'.
He noted that regional markets only began to fall on Monday after the US Government had announced it had dispatched two aircraft carriers to the region around Taiwan.
Mr Shen described the decision to deploy the aircraft carriers Independence and Nimitz as 'reckless'.
He said no other country in the world would dispatch warships to an area where the US was conducting routine military exercises.
'We do not wish to see losses occurring in regional markets but the tension in the Taiwan Strait has been caused by the Taiwan authorities and they should be held responsible,' he said.
