China’s Eastern Theater Command says its multi-force exercise will test the military’s combat readiness.
China has launched a new round of military exercises around Taiwan in its latest “warning” to the island’s democratic government.
The Chinese military said on Tuesday that the drills served as a “powerful deterrent” to “separatist forces” advocating Taiwanese independence.
The exercises are intended to test the “combat readiness” of China’s army, navy, air force, and rocket force, and their ability to work together during a joint military operation, the Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.
The drills were being carried out from multiple directions around Taiwan and focused on “sea and air combat readiness patrols, seizing comprehensive control, sea and land strikes, and blocking key areas and roads”, the Eastern Theater Command said.
Taiwan’s Presidential Office said it “strongly condemned” China’s actions, while its defence ministry announced it had deployed military vessels and aircraft to monitor the drills.
China considers Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, part of its territory and has pledged to take control of the island by force if necessary.
Wen-ti Sung, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the military exercises appeared to be focused on containing and isolating Taiwan.
“One of the scenarios that analysts have always been concerned about is the prospect of the Chinese military launching a quarantine or an embargo against waterways near Taiwan and how that may enable the PLA to squeeze Taiwan and starve Taiwan and thereby force it into submission,” Sung told Al Jazeera, using the acronym for the official name of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
“This time around, that very manoeuvre of quarantine of key passageways around Taiwan is one of the main items on the PLA to-do list.”
The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party as “separatists”, and has staged military exercises with increasing frequency in response to their activities.
In its announcement of the drills, the PLA released a short animation describing Lai as a “parasite poisoning Taiwan” while depicting the Taiwanese leader being held to a fire with a set of chopsticks.
The latest round of military exercises comes after Lai last month called Beijing a “foreign hostile force” and laid out a 17-point plan to curtail its ongoing political infiltration, espionage and influence operations in Taiwan.
On Monday, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused Lai of stirring up “anti-China sentiment” and intensifying tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Despite the uptick in military exercises, Sung said Lai’s “cross-Strait policy towards China enjoys majority support in Taiwan”, and Beijing’s responses to his actions are seen as “regrettable”.
In an opinion poll released by the Taiwanese website My Formosa last month, 57 percent of respondents said they had trust in Lai and 56 percent said they approved of his job performance, up 6 points and 7 percentage points, respectively, from the previous poll.
The website linked the uptick in Lai’s support to his speech taking aim at Beijing.
China last held military exercises near Taiwan in December, after Lai made visits to three Pacific island states, the US state of Hawaii, and the US territory of Guam.
China held bigger drills in May and October 2024 to coincide with Lai’s inauguration and Taiwan’s national day, respectively.
Beijing has stepped up its use of military drills since August 2022, when the then-speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, became the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in a quarter century.
