Taiwan stayed on high alert on Wednesday, following China’s large-scale military exercises around the island a day earlier. The coast guard reported that its emergency maritime response center continued operating as it tracked Chinese naval movements.
China’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills saw rockets fired toward Taiwan and heavy deployments of warships and aircraft, alarming regional and Western allies. Beijing declared the exercises complete but vowed to stay on high alert. Taiwan’s defense ministry responded that its forces would maintain contingency measures as Chinese planes and vessels remained nearby.
Taiwan’s defence ministry on Wednesday said 77 Chinese military aircraft and 25 navy and coast guard vessels had been operating around the island in the past 24 hours.
Among them, 35 military planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line that separates the two sides, it added.
‘Stern Warning’
As the war games unfolded, United States Ambassador to China David Perdue posted on X a photo of himself with the ambassadors from countries in the Quad, a grouping that includes the U.S., Australia, Japan and India.
In the post, he called the Quad a “force for good” working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific but gave no details about what the meeting discussed or when it took place.
The U.S. State Department said Perdue regularly meets with diplomats and Chinese officials to advance the U.S. president’s agenda. “In line with these routine meetings he met with Quad Ambassadors in Beijing on December 19”, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters.
The drills, China’s most extensive war games by coverage area to date, forced Taiwan to cancel dozens of domestic flights and dispatch jets and warships for monitoring. Soldiers ran rapid-response drills including putting up barricades at various locations.
China’s state news agency Xinhua published an article summarising “three key takeaways” from the drills, which began 11 days after the United States announced a record $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan.
The simulated “encirclement” demonstrated the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to “press and contain separatist forces while denying access to external interference – an approach summarised as ‘sealing internally and blocking externally’,” the article said, citing Zhang Chi, a professor at the PLA National Defence University.
(With inputs from Reuters)
