China launched two days of military exercises around Taiwan on Thursday in what it called a “strong punishment” for its opponents on the self-governing island, after Taiwan's new president vowed to defend its sovereignty.
The exercises were China's first substantive response to China's swearing-in President Lai Ching-te, which Beijing hates, in Taipei on Monday. Mr. Lai's political party claims that Taiwan has a separate status from China, and does so in a prominent manner inaugural speechhe promised to protect Taiwanese democracy against Chinese pressure.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, responded mainly with sharply worded criticism of Lai's speech. But it escalated its response Thursday by announcing it was conducting naval and air exercises that would encircle Taiwan and get close to Taiwan's Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin islands in the Taiwan Strait.
From the start of the exercises until the afternoon, 15 Chinese naval vessels, 16 Chinese coast guard ships and 42 Chinese military aircraft were detected around Taiwan's main island and smaller outlying islands, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Defense. Officials said at a briefing in Taipei that none of the Chinese planes and ships had entered Taiwan's territorial waters so far.
“We must express our condemnation of this behavior that is detrimental to regional peace and stability,” Sun Li-fang, a spokesman for Taiwan's ministry, said at the briefing.
The last time China held a major exercise at multiple locations in Taiwan was the following April 2023 Kevin McCarthy, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, met with then President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen. Beijing opposes such exchanges with the island's leaders.
China conducted the largest of such exercises in recent years in August 2022 to protest the visit to Taiwan of Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives. Those exercises, which included the firing of Chinese missiles near and over Taiwan, covered six areas of the sea around the island, three of which appeared to overlap with areas that Taiwan considers its territorial waters. Those exercises lasted four days, and China conducted additional exercises for several days afterward.
Li Xi, a spokesman for the Chinese People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command, said the latest exercises served as “strong punishment” for “Taiwan independence forces,” according to Chinese state media, and “a stern warning against interference and provocation by external forces,” a reference to the United States.
Even as Mr. Lai pledged in his speech to protect Taiwan, he had tried to strike a conciliatory tone in other ways, signaling that he remained open to talks with Beijing — which China had frozen in 2016 — and to resuming tourism between the two sides of the Strait. .
But China took umbrage with Mr Lai's assertion that the parties were equal – he had said they are “not subordinate to each other” – and his emphasis on Taiwan's democratic identity and his warnings against threats from China.
After the speech, Beijing accused Mr. Lai of promoting Taiwan's formal independence and said the new president was more dangerous than his predecessors. Wang Yi, China's top foreign policy official, said this week: “The ugly actions of Lai Ching-te and others who betrayed the nation and their ancestors are shameful,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. “All Taiwan independence separatists will be nailed to the shameful pillar of history.”
Taiwanese officials and military experts had expected China to show military force after Mr. Lai's inauguration. Ma Chen-kun, a professor at Taiwan's National Defense University, said the People's Liberation Army is likely to continue its presence, including around the Kinmen and Matsu islands close to the Chinese mainland.
Beijing, said Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, “seems determined to put pressure on Taiwan regardless of what Lai did or did not say” in his speech.
The exercises could teach the People's Liberation Army valuable lessons about how to impose a possible “quarantine” or blockade around Taiwan. Many experts believe that if the Chinese government tries to force Taiwan to accept unification, it will first try to deploy a military force to severely restrict air and sea access to the island.
Chieh Chung, adjunct assistant professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan, said the scope and nature of the exercises announced by China indicate that the exercise was “based on different stages of an invasion of Taiwan.” The exercise could be a way to assess whether Taiwan's outlying islands could be drawn into any attempt at a blockade, he said. Unlike the larger exercises China has conducted over the past two years, this week could include training to capture one of those islands, Mr Chieh said.
The exercises could also give various branches of the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Coast Guard a chance to coordinate their forces. The coast guard in Fujian, the coastal province opposite Taiwan, announced it would conduct a “comprehensive law enforcement exercise” around Wuqiu and Dongyin islands, Chinese state media said.
“The simultaneous conduct of law enforcement activities with the PLA military exercise further enables China to train its PLA to conduct coordinated activities with its coast guard in a wide area around Taiwan,” it said. Bonnie Lina senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This could be an invaluable experience for a series of operations against Taiwan,” added Ms. Lin, who is the lead author of a study to be published this month on how China could impose a maritime quarantine around Taiwan.
Mr Lai visited a Taiwanese Marine Corps brigade near Taipei on Thursday. In his published remarks, he made no mention of the Chinese exercises but struck a challenging tone.
“At present, the international community is paying great attention to democratic Taiwan,” Mr. Lai said, according to a statement from his office. “Faced by external challenges and threats, we will continue to defend the values of freedom and democracy.”
Chris Buckley reporting contributed.