Massive Chinese military exercises simulating a blockade of Taiwan are a signal to the self-governing island and its allies that Beijing can attack “whenever it wants”, and follows only days after America’s largest-ever arms sale to Taipei.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) staged a second day of drills around Taiwan on Tuesday in what it called a “stern warning” against “Taiwan independence separatist forces and external interference forces”.
The PLA dispatched air, navy and missile units to conduct hours of joint live-fire drills, launching rockets into waters to the north and south of the island as part of what it called “Justice Mission 2025”, its sixth major war drills in recent years.
Beijing also simulated strikes on maritime and aerial targets and carried out anti-submarine drills, as state media released images and video warning that it could take democratically governed Taiwan by force.
Taiwan’s President, Lai Ching-te, said forces were on alert to defend the island but that Taipei did not seek to escalate the situation.
Karen Kuo, spokesperson for the Taiwanese president’s office, said: “Our country strongly condemns the Chinese authorities for disregarding international norms and using military intimidation to threaten neighbouring countries.”
The US President, Donald Trump, downplayed the drills on Monday, appearing to think his relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping would prevent any invasion of Taiwan.
However, the drills this week were the largest exercises by area yet and the closest yet to Taiwan.
China’s state media published a stream of propaganda, including a poster titled “Hammers of Justice” that showed the Taiwanese President being crushed by one hammer striking the island’s south while another hits the north.
Xinhua, one of China’s state news agencies, posted a commentary saying the simulated blockade sent an unequivocal message: that Beijing is always ready to prevent anything that tries to split Taiwan from China.
It said each escalation would be met with stronger countermeasures.
A Taiwanese coast guard ship, left, sending warnings to a Chinese coast guard ship in the waters off Taiwan’s Cape Fugui on 30 December (Photo: Taiwan Coast Guard /AFP via Getty)“By currying favour with the United States through obsequious loyalty gestures and promoting arms purchases, the DPP is binding the entire island of Taiwan to its catastrophic secessionist chariot, disregarding public opinion,” it wrote, referring to Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Last week Beijing imposed sanctions against 20 defence-related US firms and 10 executives after Washington announced $10bn in large-scale arms sales to Taiwan.
The drills around Taiwan disrupted over 150 flights at the island’s four international airports, prompting revised schedules, delays and cancellations.
Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration was notified that seven temporary “dangerous zones” had been set up around the strait.
The PLA sent destroyers, frigates, fighters and bombers to the waters to the north and south of Taiwan to test its ability in sea-air co-ordination and blockading.
Video footage shows rockets being fired into water in an undisclosed location (Photo: AFP / China’s People’s Liberation Army / Eastern Theater Command via Getty Images)Ground forces carried out long-range, live-fire drills in the waters to the island’s north. In waters to the south, live-fire training was organised as well as simulated long-range joint strikes with air, navy and missile units.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected 130 aircraft, including fighters and bombers, 14 military ships and eight other official ships around the island between 6am Monday and 6am Tuesday.
Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, told The i Paper holding the drills in the winter sent the message that “China can blockade or attack Taiwan whenever it wants”, because fighting in the winter was “not a problem” for Chinese forces anymore.
“The message associated with the potential to blockade is that don’t count on external aids, Taiwan, as we [China] can cut you off,” he added.
Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence at Taiwan’s defence ministry, points at a map of the island during China’s military drills on 30 December (Photo: Tsai Hsin-Han/ Reuters)US officials have warned that China is preparing to blockade Taiwan before the end of the decade.
Dr Yun Sun, a senior fellow and director of the China programme at the Stimson Center in Washington DC, said the question of whether and when China would attack Taiwan was not straightforward and “subject to many factors”.
She said the US was a “significant factor in China’s calculus, but not the only one”.
Dr Sun added: “The less US support there is for Taiwan, the more likely China’s coercion will work and a war may not be necessary. In the Chinese view, coercion short of a war is still peaceful.”
Beijing also has to consider “whether and how they can effectively govern Taiwan” and its 23 million people if it resorts to the use of force, she added.
Professor Tsang said the risk of an invasion of Taiwan was “very low”, as Beijing would not want to risk failure or unacceptable costs of success, such as heavy losses.
An invasion would require China to be sure that the US would be deterred from interfering and to have “overwhelming superiority” against Taiwan.
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“The reality is that invading Taiwan is an operation more complex than Overlord, the amphibious assault of Normandy in 1944,” he said, referring to the largest amphibious assault in history during the Second World War.
He said Trump might seem careless about Taiwan’s democracy but Beijing “cannot be sure” what he would actually do in the event of an invasion.
“Allowing China to invade Taiwan cannot fit in with ‘Make America great again’,” he said, referring to Trump’s political slogan, “so I very much doubt that Xi Jinping will gamble on Trump. Trump is just too unreliable, and Xi does not have a record of acting recklessly.”
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