China fired rockets into waters off northern and southern Taiwan on Tuesday 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.
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 U.S. 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-U.S. 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.
Taiwan's Civil Aviation Authority said that although 11 of Taipei's 14 flight routes were affected by the drills, no international flights had been cancelled. Routes to the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu near China's coast are blocked, however, affecting around 6,000 passengers.
International carriers were making heavy use of two air corridors left open by China to the island's northeast heading towards Japan, according to Li Hanming, a U.S.-based aviation analyst.
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.
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.
China said to eye 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.