Beijing deploys planes carrying real missiles around the island that simulated attacks against military targets, while ships rehearsed a naval blockade
In the CBD of Beijing, the financial district of China’s political capital, there is a giant screen where on Thursday they were broadcasting videos of warships and fighter planes surrounding Taiwan all day. They also posted several times a map broadcast on public television showing five points around the island where the Chinese army was carrying out the siege.
In the Xintiandi neighborhood of Shanghai, one of the commercial centers of China’s economic capital, fashion advertisements are often projected on screens installed in buildings where the main international luxury brands are located. On Friday morning, among videos about the trends of the spring-summer campaign, a couple of clicks made by Artificial Intelligence were sneaked in which showed simulations of a missile attack on Taiwan by sea and air.
War propaganda reached the streets of the two main cities of the Asian giant. The Chinese government seemed to want to send a clear message at home. “If we really set our minds to it, in a few hours we could blockade Taiwan, cut off all the entry of supplies and force its authorities to comply with the wishes of the Chinese people,” says an official from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. An idea that is liked by the most nationalist followers, eager to see how the rebel island and the army fall. fulfills the eternal promise of “reunification” in the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing deployed planes carrying real missiles around Taiwan on Thursday and Friday that simulated attacks on military targets, while ships rehearsed a naval blockade. It was a large military exercise, without live fire as on previous occasions, but which included for the first time a show of force on the peripheral islands controlled by Taipei such as Matsu and Kinmen, closer to mainland China and where this year there have been several incidents between the Chinese and Taiwanese coast guard.
After Taipei celebrated the inauguration of the new president, the separatist Lai Ching-te, last Monday, a response from Beijing was expected with its usual war games in the strait. But the forcefulness of some maneuvers that serve the People’s Liberation Army (EPL) to pressure the new leader in claiming sovereignty over the island that functions de facto as an independent country has been surprising.
The Taiwan Foreign Ministry assures that they are calm and accustomed to these threats, and that these drills only reaffirm their defense of democracy, in addition to revealing the Chinese army’s strategy in a future real attack. But in Beijing they are also aware that these exercises, which do not hide the critical points of the island, serve to gather intelligence information about the immediate response capacity of the Taiwanese forces.
“Designed to surround the island of Taiwan from both the east and the west, the exercises show the army’s attack capability in all directions of the island without any blind spots, forming a situation in which the island is immobilized by all sides,” explained Tong Zhen, a researcher at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences.
The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command, the section that oversees the Taiwan Strait, is the one has directed these last war games. In addition to the naval and air force, the so-called Rocket Force has also participated, which has bases throughout China and has large arsenals of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the Dongfeng-17, which can maneuver at speed. hypersonic (five times the speed of sound), making detection by anti-missile defense systems difficult.
On Thursday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense assured that it had detected 15 Chinese navy ships, 16 coast guard ships and 49 combat aircraft, of which 35 crossed the median line, the unofficial border that separates both territories, approaching 24 nautical miles from the Taiwanese coast.
“Test the army’s capabilities”
On Friday, China’s Defense Ministry said the second day of exercises were focused on “testing its military’s ability to seize power and occupy key areas.” PLA aircraft were also reported to have carried out simulated attacks on foreign ships in the Bashi Canal, a major maritime trade route between Taiwan and the Philippines.
in the chinese newspaper Global Timesseveral PLA military analysts have summarized the weapons directed at the “Taiwan independence supporters” who participated in the drill:
“In the air, the J-20 stealth fighter can take advantage of its stealth capability and take down hostile air defense, while the J-16 can drop a large amount of munitions on ground targets; at sea, the Type guided missile destroyer 052D can take control and block maritime access to the island, while the Type 071 can transport heavily equipped landing troops to cross the strait; the DF-16A short-range ballistic missile can conduct precision strikes against military and political targets; high-value, and the modular long-range multiple launch rocket system can ensure the superiority of artillery fire.
These have been the third largest war games around Taiwan since August 2022, when the Chinese army launched ballistic missiles that flew over the island in response to the visit to Taipei of the then president of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. In April 2023, when former Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen traveled to California to meet with the then Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, in Beijing they rehearsed launching fighter jets from aircraft carriers.
This May’s exercises, of lower intensity than the other two, have focused above all on practicing a total blockade that isolates Taiwan from rapid assistance from its main ally, the United States. The simulated attacks from the air have also been directed especially at the east coast of the island, which is located on the other side of a mountain range and barely has space for an amphibious landing. For this reason, Taipei established the most important part of its military infrastructure there, the same one that China’s destructive power has targeted in the last two days.
