China fires rockets towards Taiwan in war games simulating blockade
China conducted extensive live-firing drills around Taiwan, simulating a blockade and strikes on key military targets, as Taipei monitors potential missile launches amid rising regional tensions.
Highlight:
- China carrying out 10 hours of live-firing drills around Taiwan
- Chinese military rehearsing blockade of island's north and south
- Taiwan watching if China fires missile over island, source says
- Taiwan says China is simulating strikes on U.S.-made weapons system
China fired rockets into waters off northern and southern Taiwan today (30 December) and deployed new amphibious assault ships alongside bomber aircraft and destroyers on the second day of its most extensive war games, a rehearsal for a blockade of the island.
The Eastern Theatre Command said live-firing would take place until 6 pm (1000 GMT), affecting the sea and airspace of five locations surrounding Taiwan. It also released a video showing what appeared to be a mobile PCH-191 rocket launcher firing into the sea from an unspecified location in China.
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Naval and air force units also simulated strikes on Taiwan maritime and aerial targets as well as anti-submarine operations to the democratically governed island's north and south, the Chinese military said.
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 area and the closest yet to the island.
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 U.S.-made HIMARS rocket system, the source said, a highly mobile artillery system with a range of about 300 km (186 miles) that could hit coastal targets in southern China.
China's PCH-191 is an advanced modular long-range rocket launcher with a strike range comparable to the HIMARS system. Featuring in Beijing's massive military parade to mark the end of World War Two in September, the system can strike any point on Taiwan, according to Chinese state media.
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te said in a post on Facebook that frontline troops were primed to defend the island, but that Taipei did not seek to escalate the situation.
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.
China's Eastern Theatre Command said it had fired rockets into waters both north and south of the island.
Lyle Goldstein, Asia programme director at US-based think tank Defense Priorities, said Beijing had likely gained confidence from its tariff negotiations with the US and sensed it could exploit divisions within Taiwan's parliament.
"I do see an increasing level of realism in the exercises and increasing boldness," he said.
"Buying (more weapons) may sound like a silver bullet, but it's far from that. This is an arms race Taiwan cannot possibly win."
Siege tactics
A Chinese blockade would be devastatingly disruptive in the event of an attack, analysts say.
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.
