PLA fires rockets in waters near Taiwan on second day of Beijing’s drills around island

The People’s Liberation Army fired rockets at waters near Taiwan on Tuesday during a second day of large-scale drills, as Beijing threatened to block cargo ships carrying US-made weapons to the island. According to statements and videos released by the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command, live-fire drills were conducted north, south and east of the island, highlighting the PLA’s capacity to seize or impose a blockade on the island using various tactics. The videos showed troops preparing for the exercise before sunrise, including sending out a drone that was apparently used to film rockets exploding in the target area in waters north of the island. Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Monday afternoon that the exercise area delineated by the PLA encompassed Taiwan’s 12-nautical-mile zone. On Tuesday afternoon, the ministry said shells fired by the PLA were “scattered around Taiwan’s 24-nautical-mile line”. The ministry said that from 6am to 3pm on Tuesday, Taiwanese forces detected 71 PLA aircraft sorties, 13 PLA vessels, 15 mainland coastguard ships and four ships within an amphibious formation operating in waters east of the island. The Coast Guard Administration of Taiwan said the PLA was firing live rockets from its PCL-191 system, one of the PLA’s most advanced, truck-mounted multiple launch rocket systems. From mainland China it could fire rockets across most of Taiwan’s main island. According to the administration, the rockets were fired from Pingtan Island in Fujian province, which is just 126km (78 miles) from the Taiwanese coastal city of Hsinchu. The PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command on Monday said the drills – code-named Justice Mission 2025 – were a warning to “independence forces” and against external interference. It said the drills were expected to end on Tuesday. They come amid heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait after Washington approved a record US$11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan. East of the island, on the far side from mainland China, the PLA conducted drills to simulate an attack with a troop drop-off and the seizure of key ports. It showed footage of cannons being fired from the Hainan, a Type 075 landing helicopter dock, and dozens of armed soldiers boarding helicopters ready for take-off. One of the videos also showed aerial observation footage of an airport in Taiwan, which former Taiwanese navy lieutenant commander Lu Li-shih identified as the Hsinchu Air Force Base in western Taiwan. The base faces Fujian province and is the sole base for the Taiwanese air force’s fourth-generation Mirage 2000 fighter jets. Lu noted this indicated the PLA was rehearsing “decapitation strikes”, meaning rapid attacks on high-value political and military targets within the island. On the first day of the live-fire drills blockading the island, the PLA mobilised stealth fighters, drones, destroyers and missile launchers. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected some 130 PLA aircraft, 14 ships and eight “official” vessels – usually a reference to coastguard ships – near the island in the 24 hours to 6am on Tuesday. That was the highest number recorded in a day this year, according to data compiled by the South China Morning Post. The ministry said there had been 90 flights across the unofficial median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from mainland China. Washington has yet to issue any official statement. On Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, US President Donald Trump said “nothing worries me” regarding the latest PLA exercises. On Tuesday, South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Park Il called for “peace and stability” to prevail in the Taiwan Strait and said Seoul hoped “cross-strait relations would develop peacefully through dialogue and cooperation”. Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US and Japan, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons. As in previous drills and the first day of these drills, coastguard vessels from the mainland were also sent to waters surrounding Taiwan on Tuesday, according to Zhu Anqing, spokesman for the East China Sea division of the mainland’s coastguard. The coastguard released a poster on social media with the title “Chokehold” showing mainland vessels and helicopters blockading Taiwan from all directions. It also features a coastguard vessel blocking an Evergreen cargo ship carrying what appears to be US-made Himars rocket launchers. Taiwanese media outlets have previously reported that Taipei used civilian cargo ships such as Evergreen and Yang Ming to transport US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks to the island in July this year and in December last year. In Beijing, Taiwan Affairs Office director Song Tao urged Taiwanese residents on the mainland to “oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism and external interference” when he spoke at a symposium attended by Taiwanese businesspeople. Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te condemned the drill on Tuesday. In a social media post, he criticised Beijing’s “frequent escalation of military pressure”, stating that such actions “are not the manner of a responsible major power”. He added that Taipei’s security agencies and military were working closely to secure the island’s security, adding that Taiwan would “neither escalate conflicts nor provoke disputes”. In response, the Taiwanese military’s Hsiung Feng III supersonic anti-ship missiles were deployed in the southern city of Kaohsiung on the Hengchun Peninsula – the southernmost point of the island, Taiwan’s United Daily News reported on Tuesday morning. The Hsiung Feng III is regarded as the Taiwanese navy’s “carrier killer”, capable of striking targets up to 400km (248 miles) away. Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration said that by noon on Tuesday, no international flights to or from Taiwan had been cancelled due to the military exercises, although some required re-routing. However, 29 flights from Taiwan to Quemoy, also known as Kinmen, and seven to Matsu, which are off the coast of Fujian, were cancelled, affecting nearly 6,000 passengers. Taiwan’s defence ministry said the PLA had only announced the plan to conduct drills a day in advance and that the military activities had severely disrupted civilian flights. “Such large-scale disruption to international air routes and regional airspace usage disregards aviation safety and the rights and interests of the public,” the ministry said, adding that it “strongly condemns this crude and provocative action”.

PLA fires rockets in waters near Taiwan on second day of Beijing’s drills around island

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Coastguard releases poster depicting blockade as Eastern Theatre Command conducts live-fire exercises to north and south of island

Coastguard releases poster depicting blockade as Eastern Theatre Command conducts live-fire exercises to north and south of island