China launches live-firing drills around Taiwan simulating blockade

By Yimou Lee and Joe Cash

TAIPEI/BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) - China launched 10 hours of live-firing exercises around Taiwan on Tuesday, deploying new amphibious assault ships alongside bomber aircraft and warships on the second day of its largest-ever war games aimed at rehearsing a blockade of the island.

The Eastern Theatre Command said live-firing would take place until 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) in the sea and airspace of five locations surrounding Taiwan, and that naval and air force units were drilling strikes on maritime and aerial targets as well as anti-submarine operations to the democratically governed island's north and south.

Named "Justice Mission 2025", the drills began 11 days after the U.S. announced a record $11.1 billion arms package to Taiwan and are Beijing's largest exercises to date by total coverage and proximity to the island, following China's Maritime Safety Administration on Monday adding two additional live-fire zones.

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that Taipei is watching whether this sixth major round of war games since 2022, when then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, will also see China fire missiles over Taiwan, as it did then.

Beijing also looks to be using the exercises to practise striking land-based targets such as the U.S.-made HIMARS rocket system, the source said, a highly mobile artillery system with a range of about 300 km (186 miles) that could hit coastal targets in southern China.

Some $2.45 trillion in trade moves through the Taiwan Strait each year, while the airspace above the island serves as a corridor connecting China, the world's second-largest economy, with the fast-growing markets of East and Southeast Asia.

Eleven of Taipei's 14 flight routes will be affected by the drills, Taiwan's Civil Aviation Authority said, impacting more than 100,000 passengers and leaving only a northeast corridor to Japan open for commercial flights. Routes to the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu near China's coast are blocked.

"China is trying to make progress in asserting dominance over the entire island chain through extreme pressure tactics in various ways," the Taiwan security official said. "As one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, they seek to reshape the international order according to their own agenda."

Taiwan's defence ministry said 130 Chinese military aircraft and 22 navy and coast guard vessels had been operating around the island in the 24 hours up to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, with 90 planes crossing the Median Line that divides the Taiwan Strait. 

SHOW OF FORCE 

Beijing escalated its rhetoric about territorial claims to Taiwan after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested last month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Chinese state media on Tuesday continued to publish propaganda posters, including one titled "Hammers of Justice" that shows Taiwan President Lai Ching-te 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.

The Chinese military on Monday released an AI-generated video depicting automated humanoid robots, microdrones and weaponised robotic dogs attacking the island.

Chinese media have also published maps illustrating the drills' encirclement of the island and the designated live-fire zones, though Reuters was unable to immediately verify whether artillery exercises were occurring in all of them.

Taiwan's defence ministry said of the seven zones Chinese authorities have demarcated for live-firing drills, five of them overlapped with Taiwan's territorial waters, defined as 12 nautical miles from its coast, and that it has authorised frontline troops to engage Chinese troops if they do. 

CHINA EYES 2027 READINESS TARGET

The Chinese military said it had deployed destroyers, bombers and other units to drill sea-based assaults, air defence and anti-submarine operations on Tuesday. The drills would "test sea and air forces' ability to coordinate for integrated containment and control."

The Eastern Theatre Command said on Monday that simulating a blockade of Taiwan's vital deep-water Port of Keelung to the island's north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan's south, its largest port city, was central to the drills.

Reuters reported last week that a draft Pentagon report says "China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027," the centenary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, a key symbolic milestone in Chinese President Xi Jinping's modernisation drive.

But Xi's sweeping anti-corruption campaign within the military has raised questions about its readiness. The Chinese leader expelled eight generals from the PLA for graft in October and reports show revenue at China's defence firms fell 10% last year despite three decades of rising military budgets.

Still, Beijing was contemplating carrying out strikes 1,500-2,000 nautical miles from China to take Taiwan by "brute force" if needed, the Pentagon report said. 

(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing and Yimou Lee in Taipei; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Stephen Coates)