China’s shows of force against Taiwan

Taiwan has said China is carrying out huge maritime drills around its main island in some of Beijing’s biggest-ever military exercises.

AFP takes a look at China’s increasing efforts at military intimidation around Taiwan in recent years:

Regular incursions

Relations between the governments of China and Taiwan have ebbed and flowed over the decades.

Tensions exploded in 1995 when China began test-firing missiles in the waters around Taiwan to protest against a visit by Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui to his alma mater in the United States.

But China has notably ramped up military manoeuvres since the 2016 election of former president Tsai Ing-wen, who considers the island “already independent,” including with warplane flights into Taiwan’s so-called Air Defence Identification Zone.

Taipei said in April last year it had detected the long-range TB-001 Chinese combat drone and 37 other Chinese aircraft circling Taiwan.

That was the first time Taiwan’s defence ministry had reported a Chinese military aircraft circling the island from one end of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, which China does not recognize, to the other, local media said.

Beijing now deploys planes and naval vessels around Taiwan on a near-daily basis.

China has also increasingly conducted major exercises around the island -- usually in response to alleged “provocations” by Taipei.

Former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in August 2022 triggered Beijing’s largest-ever war games.

The drills ran for at least five days and involved what Beijing called a “conventional missile firepower assault” in waters to the east of Taiwan.

They were followed by more drills that month after another delegation of US lawmakers visited Taipei.

China went on to deploy 71 warplanes in military exercises around Christmas that year, which the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said were a “strike drill” responding to unspecified “provocations” and “collusion” between the United States and Taiwan.

Simulated strikes

Cross-strait tensions spiked again in April 2023, when China held three days of military drills after a meeting between Tsai and Pelosi’s successor Kevin McCarthy.

The war games saw Beijing simulate targeted strikes on Taiwan and encirclement of the island, including “sealing” it off.

Chinese state media reported dozens of planes had practiced an “aerial blockade.”

One of China’s two aircraft carriers, the Shandong, also participated in the exercises.

The drills were followed by a rocket launch from northwest China that Taiwan authorities said had sent debris falling into the sea north of the island.

That August, a stopover in the United States by then vice president Lai drew Beijing’s ire, with the PLA holding new war games intended to serve as a “stern warning to the collusion of ‘Taiwan independence separatists’ with foreign elements.”

Lai was then elected president this January in a contest overshadowed by fears of military threats from Beijing.

Following his inauguration in May, China announced two days of drills as a “strong punishment for the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces.”

And in October it was a National Day speech by Lai in which he vowed to “resist annexation” that angered Beijing, which sent fighter jets and warships around the island in another round of its “Joint Sword 2024” exercises.

‘Wrong signals’

Beijing opposes any official contact between Taiwan and other countries.

And a tour by Lai of a number of Pacific islands -- some part of the United States -- has sparked outrage from Beijing, which resents any suggestion the Taiwan leader is a legitimate head of state.

China’s foreign ministry last month warned Washington to “stop sending wrong signals” over Taiwan after Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with Lai in a call during his overseas trip.

A day after his call with Johnson, Lai said he was “confident” Taiwan would “continue to deepen cooperation” with the incoming Donald Trump administration.

The United States does not have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but has an arrangement to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

China vowed Monday to “firmly defend” its sovereignty and insisted Taiwan was an “inalienable” part of its territory.

On Tuesday, a Taiwan security official told AFP that nearly 90 Chinese naval and coast guard ships were currently in waters of the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and South China Sea -- exceeding Beijing’s maritime response to Pelosi’s visit in 2022.