China began fresh military drills using the army, air force and navy around Taiwan on Monday after the US cleared the largest arms sale ever to Taipei.
The “Justice Mission 2025” drills would place five zones around Taiwan under sea and air space restrictions for 10 hours from 8 am local time, the Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command announced.
Taipei accused China of “military intimidation" after Beijing said the exercises were a “stern warning” against separatist and "external interference" forces.
The war games follow a rise in Chinese rhetoric over Beijing’s territorial claims after Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could draw a military response from Tokyo.
They also come less than two weeks after the US announced $11.1bn in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest-ever weapons package for the island. Beijing last week sanctioned 20 American companies and 10 executives in retaliation for the sale.
The latest drills are China’s sixth since 2022, when the then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island and triggered a furious response from Beijing.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and does not rule out the use of force to reunify it with the mainland. Analysts say Beijing's exercises increasingly blur the line between routine military training and stage-setting for an attack, a strategy intended to allow the US and its allies minimal warning of an assault.
China's military said it had deployed fighter jets, bombers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and long-range rockets, and would practice striking mobile land-based targets while simulating a coordinated attack on the island from multiple directions.
Senior Col Shi Yi, spokesperson for the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command, said the drills would be conducted in the Taiwan Straits and areas to the north, southwest, southeast and east of the island.
Col Shi explained the activities would focus on sea-air combat readiness patrol, "joint seizure of comprehensive superiority", blockades of ports, and deterrence of external intervention.
“It’s a stern warning against 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces,” he said, “and it’s a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China's sovereignty and national unity.”
Taiwan’s presidential office said the latest exercises “blatantly undermine the security and stability status quo of the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region” while “openly challenging international laws and order".
“We strongly condemn the Chinese authorities’ disregard for international norms and their use of military intimidation to threaten neighbouring countries,” it added.
Taiwan's defence ministry said two Chinese military aircraft and 11 ships had been operating around the island over the last 24 hours and that its military was on high alert and poised to carry out "rapid response exercises”.
Following the drill announcement, the Chinese military released two posters titled "Shields of Justice: Smashing Illusions" and "Arrows of Justice: Control and Denial", along with a third graphic depicting four locations across the island with targets locking on.
China's state broadcaster said the drills would focus on sealing off Taiwan's deep-water port of Keelung in the north and the largest port city of Kaohsiung to the south.
Scores of Chinese military boats and planes were operating near Taiwan on Monday and some were "deliberately closing in" on the island’s contiguous zone, defined as being 24 nautical miles from its coast, a senior Taiwan security official told Reuters.
The Taiwanese coast guard said it had dispatched large ships in response to Chinese coast guard activity and was working with the military to minimise the impact of the drills on maritime routes and fishing areas.
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