By Yimou Lee, Joe Cash and Liz Lee
Taipei/Beijing — China fired rockets into waters off Taiwan on Tuesday, showcased new assault ships and dismissed prospects of US and allied intervention to block any future attack by Beijing to take control of the island in its most extensive war games to date.
As part of drills rehearsing a blockade, China’s Eastern Theatre Command conducted 10 hours of live-fire exercises, launching rockets into waters to the north and south of the democratically governed island.
Chinese naval and air force units also simulated strikes on maritime and aerial targets and carried out anti-submarine drills around the island, while state media released images touting Beijing’s technological and military superiority and its ability to take Taiwan by force if necessary.
Named Justice Mission 2025, the drills began 11 days after the US announced a record $11.1bn arms package to Taiwan, drawing the Chinese defence ministry’s ire and warnings that the military would “take forceful measures” in response.
For the first time, China’s military said the drills are aimed at deterring outside intervention.
“Any external forces that attempt to intervene in the Taiwan issue or interfere in China’s internal affairs will surely smash their heads bloody against the iron walls of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” China’s Taiwan affairs office said in a statement on Monday.
Beijing has intensified its rhetoric over Taiwan in the weeks since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested a hypothetical attack on the island could trigger a military response from Tokyo.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week promoted the commander of the Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees Taiwan-facing operations, to full general. Analysts say the move serves to shore up the military’s combat readiness after a leadership purge.
“China not only has vast numerical superiority, it now has qualitative superiority across the board in weaponry and probably in training as well,” said Lyle Goldstein, Asia programme director at US-based think-tank Defense Priorities. “This is an arms race Taiwan cannot possibly win.”
US President Donald Trump downplayed the drills on Monday, talking up his relationship with Xi and saying China has carried out naval exercises around Taiwan for 20 years.
The drills this week, the sixth major round of war games since 2022, were the largest by area and the closest yet to Taiwan.
Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence at Taiwan’s defence ministry, told reporters China ramped up its drills around the island over the past three years to make people doubt the government’s ability to defend them.
A senior Taiwanese security official said China appears to be simulating striking land-based targets such as the US-made Himars defence system. The mobile artillery system has a range of about 300km and is capable of hitting coastal targets in southern China.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said in a post on Facebook that frontline troops are primed to defend the island but that Taipei does not seek to escalate the situation.
China’s state media rolled out a stream of propaganda posters. One titled Hammers of Justice shows Lai 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.
Taiwan sits alongside key commercial shipping and aviation routes, with $2.45-trillion in trade moving through the Taiwan Strait each year. The airspace above the island is 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 have been cancelled. Routes to the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu near China’s coast were blocked, affecting about 6,000 passengers.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said 71 Chinese military aircraft and 24 navy and coast guard vessels were operating around the island on Tuesday. The ministry added that China fired 27 rockets in Taiwan’s waters.
Chinese coast guard ships were tracking Taiwanese vessels during the drills, a Taiwanese coast guard official told Reuters.
A Pentagon report released last week said the US military believes China is preparing to be able to win a fight for Taiwan by 2027, the centenary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army.
China’s military said on Monday that simulating a blockade of Taiwan’s deep-water Port of Keelung to the island’s north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan’s south, its largest port city, is central to the drills.
The Pentagon report said US military planners believe Beijing is also contemplating carrying out strikes from China to take Taiwan by “brute force” if needed.
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