China fires rockets towards Taiwan in war games simulating blockade

China fired rockets toward Taiwan on Tuesday and deployed new amphibious assault ships alongside bomber aircraft and warships to encircle the island on the second day of its most extensive war games aimed at rehearsing a blockade.

The Eastern Theatre Command said live-firing would take place until 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) in the sea and airspace of five locations surrounding Taiwan and off the Chinese coast, while naval and air force units drilled strikes on maritime and aerial targets as well as anti-submarine operations to the democratically governed island’s north and south.

Named “Justice Mission 2025”, the drills began 11 days after the US announced a record $11.1 billion arms package to Taiwan and are Beijing’s largest exercises to date by total coverage and proximity to the island, following China’s Maritime Safety Administration on Monday adding two additional live-fire zones.

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that Taipei is watching whether this sixth major round of war games since 2022, when then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, will also see China fire missiles over Taiwan, as it did then.

Beijing also looks to be using the exercises to practise striking land-based targets such as the US-made HIMARS rocket system, the source said, a highly mobile artillery system with a range of about 186 miles that could hit coastal targets in southern China.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said in a post on Facebook that China’s exercises were “inconsistent with the conduct expected of a responsible major power”. Frontline troops were primed to defend the island, but Taipei did not seek to escalate the situation, he added.

The island’s defence ministry confirmed live-firing drills had taken place to Taiwan’s north on Tuesday morning, and debris had entered its contiguous zone, defined as 24 nautical miles offshore.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify whether China also launched rockets in the other zones it had demarcated for the exercises.

Taiwan sits alongside key commercial shipping and aviation routes, with some $2.45 trillion in trade moving through the Taiwan Strait each year and the airspace above the island a conduit between China, the world’s second-largest economy, and the fast-growing markets of East and Southeast Asia.

While 11 of Taipei’s 14 flight routes have been affected by the drills, according to Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Authority, disruption to international flights appears to be minimal.

Li Hanming, a US-based aviation analyst, said commercial carriers were making heavy use of two air corridors heading out to the island’s northeast heading towards Japan.

Fourteen Chinese coastguard vessels continued to sail around Taiwan’s contiguous zone on Tuesday, some of which were engaged in standoffs with Taiwanese vessels, a Taiwan coast guard official told Reuters.

“We adopted a one-to-one parallel navigation approach, closely shadowing each other’s routes,” the official said, adding that Taiwan had also employed “wave-making and manoeuvring techniques” to force the Chinese vessels to retreat.

The defence ministry said 130 Chinese military aircraft and 22 navy and coastguard vessels had been operating around the island in the 24 hours up to 6:00 a.m.

SHOW OF FORCE

Beijing escalated its rhetoric about territorial claims to Taiwan after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested last month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Chinese state media on Tuesday continued to publish propaganda posters, including one titled “Hammers of Justice” that shows Taiwan President Lai Ching-te being crushed by one hammer striking the island’s south while another hits its north.

Chinese newspapers also highlighted the first deployment of the Type 075 amphibious assault ship. Zhang Chi, an academic at China’s National Defence University, said the vessel can simultaneously launch attack helicopters, landing-craft, amphibious tanks and armoured vehicles.

The Chinese military on Monday released an AI-generated video depicting automated humanoid robots, microdrones and weaponised robotic dogs attacking the island.

Chinese media have also published maps illustrating the drills’ encirclement of the island and the designated live-fire zone.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said of the seven zones Chinese authorities had demarcated for live-firing drills, five of them overlapped with Taiwan’s territorial waters, defined as 12 nautical miles from its coast.

CHINA EYES 2027 READINESS TARGET

The Chinese military said it had deployed destroyers, bombers and other units to drill sea-based assaults, air defence and anti-submarine operations on Tuesday.

The drills would “test sea and air forces’ ability to coordinate for integrated containment and control.”

The Eastern Theatre Command said on Monday that simulating a blockade of Taiwan’s vital deep-water Port of Keelung to the island’s north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan’s south, its largest port city, was central to the drills.

Reuters reported last week that a draft Pentagon report says “China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027,” the centenary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army, a key symbolic milestone in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s modernisation drive.

But Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign within the military has raised questions about its readiness.

The Chinese leader expelled eight generals from the PLA for graft in October and reports show revenue at China’s defence firms fell 10% last year despite three decades of rising military budgets.

Still, Beijing was contemplating carrying out strikes 1,500-2,000 nautical miles from China to take Taiwan by “brute force” if needed, the Pentagon report said.