This handout from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command released on October 14, 2024, shows a map of locations of the “Joint Sword-2024B” military drills being conducted by China around Taiwan.
| Photo Credit: AFP/ China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command

China held large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands on Monday (October 14, 2024) in what it called a warning against Taiwan independence.

China’s Defense Ministry said the drills were a response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s refusal to concede to Beijing’s demands that Taiwan acknowledge itself as a part of the People’s Republic of China under the rule of the Communist Party.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry called the drills a provocation and said its forces were prepared to respond.

The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson, Navy Senior Captain Li Xi, said the navy, army air force and missile corps were all mobilised for the drills.

“This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan’s independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Mr. Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.

Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power on the mainland.

Mr. Lai took office in May 2024, continuing the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability.

Taiwan’s armed forces are keeping a close watch on developments and “exercising an appropriate vigilance and response. File.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Taiwan reported a Chinese aircraft carrier group sailing to the island’s south on Sunday (October 13, 2024), as China’s military put out a video saying it was “prepared for battle” amid concerns in Taipei about the possibility of a new round of Chinese war games.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, detests its President Lai Ching-te as a “separatist”, and the Chinese military routinely operates around the island.

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Last week at his keynote national day speech, Mr. Lai said the People’s Republic of China had no right to represent Taiwan, but that the island was willing to work with Beijing to combat challenges like climate change, striking both a firm and conciliatory tone, but drawing anger from China.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that a Chinese navy group led by the carrier the Liaoning had entered waters near the Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea and the Pacific and separates Taiwan from the Philippines. It said the carrier group was expected to enter the Western Pacific.

Taiwan’s armed forces are keeping a close watch on developments and “exercising an appropriate vigilance and response”, the Ministry added, without elaborating.

Security sources in Taiwan had said before Mr. Lai’s address that his speech could prompt new Chinese war games, last held by the country in May in what Beijing said was “punishment” for Lai’s inauguration speech that month.

Earlier on Sunday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command, which has responsibility for an area that includes Taiwan, put out a propaganda video on its social media accounts entitled “fully prepared and biding ones time before battle”.

It showed fighter jets and warships operating together, mobile missile launchers being moving into place and amphibious assault vehicles, with a small map of Taiwan included in one of the Chinese characters that make up the video’s title.

China has not ruled out using force to achieve unification.

China’s Defence Ministry did not answer calls outside of office hours on Sunday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Lai and his government reject Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. Mr. Lai has repeatedly offered talks with Beijing but been rebuffed.