China launches live-fire drills around Taiwan simulating blockade of major ports | Taiwan

China has launched live-fire military drills around Taiwan, simulating a blockade of major ports, attacking maritime targets, and fending off international “interference”, in what it calls a warning to “separatist” forces in Taiwan.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the military wing of the ruling Communist party in China – sent its navy, air force, rocket force and coastguard to surround Taiwan on Monday morning for a surprise exercise called “Justice Mission 2025”, which began less than an hour after it was announced.

The PLA’s eastern theatre command said it had deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters, bombers, drones and long-range missiles “in close proximity” to Taiwan, to test “sea-air coordination and precise target hunting and neutralisation”, including attacks on submarines and other maritime targets.

By Monday afternoon, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected 28 navy and coastguard ships, including two that entered Taiwan’s contiguous zone. At least 89 warplanes – the largest daily tally for more than a year – were counted, and a formation of four amphibious assault ships, which can carry dozens of rotary aircraft, was spotted 160 nautical miles west of Taiwan’s southern tip.

Col Shi Yi, the spokesperson for the PLA’s eastern theatre command, said the drills were “a stern warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and external interference forces”. A foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said unnamed “external parties” were pushing the region closer to war.

“Any sinister schemes to obstruct China’s reunification are doomed to fail,” Lin said.

While large military drills take extensive planning and are usually part of general training, the PLA often links them to perceived acts of provocation, and some propaganda on Monday specifically cited a recent approval by the US government for a record $11bn weapons sales to Taiwan.

Analysts also noted Beijing’s recent anger at speeches by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, vowing to boost Taiwan’s defences and achieve a “high level of combat preparedness” by 2027, and the ongoing dispute with Japan after its prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said her country would most likely become militarily involved if China attacked Taiwan.

Fu Zhengnan, a researcher at the PLA’s Academy of Military Science, was quoted by Chinese media as saying that the drills were justified by the recent US weapons sales and the fact that the goods bought included offensive as well as defensive equipment. “Despite repeated warnings from China, the US and Taiwan engaged in serious collusion and provocation. The PLA’s decisive action was a reasonable, legal and forced response,” Fu said.

A propaganda poster depicted flaming arrows shot from China to Taiwan’s main island, piercing green bugs representing what Beijing terms separatist forces, while a foreign warship “flee[s] upon witnessing this scene”, the state media tabloid, the Global Times said.

In response to the drills, Taiwan accused Beijing of escalating tensions and undermining regional peace. It condemned the activity, saying it dispatched “appropriate forces” to respond and conduct counter-combat-readiness exercises of its own.

“Defending democracy and freedom is no provocation, and the existence of the Republic of China [Taiwan’s formal name] is not an excuse for aggressors to disrupt the status quo,” the ministry said.

Beijing claims Taiwan is a Chinese province and is preparing to militarily annex it, with the aim of being capable of invasion by 2027, according to US intelligence from several years ago.

The Chinese Communist party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping, have urged Taiwan to accept “peaceful reunification” to avoid deadly force. However, the vast majority of Taiwan’s parliament and people reject the prospect of CCP rule, and Taiwan is boosting its own military defences in resistance.

The live-fire exercises covered a larger area than previous drills, according to published maps of air and maritime warning areas, some of which overlap with Taiwan’s territorial border 12 nautical miles off its coast. Taiwan aviation authorities said more than 100,000 passengers on more than 850 scheduled international and domestic flights would be affected on Tuesday.

Justice Mission 2025 is the sixth major PLA military exercise targeting Taiwan since 2022, when it launched days of live-fire drills in retaliation for the then US speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visiting the island. In April, it held a two-day operation labelled Strait Thunder-2025A, prompting expectations for a “B” before year’s end.

Analysts said it was the first time the PLA had explicitly said it was practising deterring international involvement. Also unusually, a number of PLA aircraft remained visible on radar platforms.

“That is a signal that the PLA is building up their anti-access/area denial capabilities, and publicly declaring it,” said William Yang, a senior north-east Asia analyst for the the non-profit International Crisis Group.

Yang also noted it was the second major exercise during the second term of the US president, Donald Trump, who met Xi in October but did not discuss Taiwan.

Yang said: “Beijing will likely take into account the response from the US [to these drills] and carefully determine how it should formulate and plan the PLA’s military operation.”

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu and Lillian Yang