China launched two-day military drills to encircle Taiwan on Thursday in what it called “powerful punishment” against the self-ruled island's opponents, after Taiwan's new president vowed to defend sovereignty.
The drill was China's first substantive response to the swearing-in of Chinese President Lai Qingde, who is hated by the Chinese government, in Taipei on Monday. Mr. Lai's party maintains Taiwan's independence from China, and in his high-profile inaugural speech he vowed to protect Taiwan's democracy from Chinese pressure.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has so far mainly criticized Lai's speech in harsh terms. However, on Thursday, China escalated its counterattack by announcing that it would encircle Taiwan and conduct naval and air exercises approaching Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu, and Dongyin islands in the Taiwan Strait.
China has not said how many aircraft and ships it involved in the exercises. The last time it conducted large-scale drills at locations on Taiwan was in April 2023, after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. Beijing opposes such interactions with the island's leaders.
In August 2022, China conducted its largest military exercise in recent years to protest the visit of then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. These drills, which included Chinese missile launches near and over Taiwan, covered six areas of water surrounding the island, three of which appeared to overlap with what Taiwan considers territorial waters. These exercises lasted four days, and China conducted additional exercises in the following days.
According to Chinese state media, Li Xi, spokesman for the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command, said the drills were a “strong punishment” for the “Taiwan independence army” and served as a “stern warning against interference and provocation by external forces,” a reference to the United States.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the drills were an “unreasonable provocation” that undermined “regional peace and stability.” The ministry also said of the X, “We stand ready with firm resolve and restraint. We do not seek conflict, but we will not avoid it. We are confident in safeguarding our national security.”
While Lai vowed to defend Taiwan in his speech, he also sought to strike a conciliatory tone in other ways, suggesting he was open to resuming cross-strait tourism and talks with China that were frozen in 2016.
But China was angered by Lai's insistence that the two countries are equal, and his comments that emphasized Taiwan's democratic identity and warnings against the threat from China.
After the speech, the Chinese government accused Lai of pushing for formal independence for Taiwan and said the new president is more dangerous than his predecessor. “The ugly acts of Lai Ching-te and others who betray the nation and our ancestors are shameful,” Chinese foreign policy official Wang Yi said this week, according to China's Foreign Ministry. “All Taiwanese independence separatists will be nailed to history's pillar of shame.”
Taiwanese officials and military experts have expected China to flex its muscles under Lai's leadership, and the People's Liberation Army is likely to maintain a strong presence, including around the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, close to the mainland, said Ma Chenkun, a professor at Taiwan's National Defense University.
The exercise could provide the People's Liberation Army with valuable lessons on how to impose a “quarantine” or blockade around Taiwan. Many experts believe that if Beijing were to try to force Taiwan to accept reunification, it might first try to use its military to severely restrict air and sea access to the island.
Zhong Jie, an adjunct assistant professor at Taiwan's Tamkang University Graduate School of Strategic Studies, said the scope and nature of the exercises announced by China suggest they are “based on different stages of the invasion of Taiwan.” Ta. He said the exercise could be a way to assess whether to include Taiwan's remote islands in blockade attempts. Unlike the larger exercises China has conducted over the past two years, this week's exercise could serve as a training exercise to seize one of those islands, Zhong Jie said.
The exercise may also provide an opportunity for various units of the People's Liberation Army and China Coast Guard to coordinate their efforts. The coast guard of Fujian province, a coastal province bordering Taiwan, announced it would hold a “comprehensive law enforcement exercise” around the islands of Wuqiu and Dongyin, Chinese state media reported.
“By conducting law enforcement activities and PLA military exercises simultaneously, China is further able to train the PLA to conduct coordinated activities with the coast guard in the broader area around Taiwan,” said Bonnie Lin, a senior Asia security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This could provide valuable experience for various operations against Taiwan,” added Lin, one of the authors of a study to be published later this month on how China could impose a maritime quarantine around Taiwan.
Jia-Ian Cheong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said he was also studying how close Chinese forces were to Taiwan and whether there was any intention to “disrupt transport, communications and daily life” or to “cut off the borders between Taiwan and some of the outlying islands”.
Cheung noted that long before Lai gave his inaugural speech, the Chinese government had been trying to cast him as a pro-independence troublemaker who would bring war to Taiwan as he ran for president.
Cheung said that regardless of what Lai may or may not have said in his speech, Beijing appears determined to pressure Taiwan unless it accepts or supports China's Taiwan-Taiwan framework and insistence on unification. However, most people in Taiwan are opposed to being absorbed into the People's Republic of China and support maintaining the status quo.
The Chinese government may be “hoping that domestic opposition or external pressure will frustrate Lai, force him to accept risks and make mistakes,” Cheung said. “The Chinese government could then use these mistakes to portray Lai as a source of instability, isolating him from the Taiwanese people and isolating Taiwan from the rest of the world.”
chris buckley Contributed to the report.