As the maneuvers got underway, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) carried out long-range, live-fire exercises and “precision strikes” on eastern parts of the strait. Taiwan’s defense ministry said the PLA fired 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles into the waters off northeastern and southwestern Taiwan on Thursday afternoon.
About 10 Chinese naval ships crossed the strait’s median line on Wednesday night and remained in that area through midday Thursday, while Chinese military aircraft also crossed the unofficial maritime boundary Thursday morning, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source briefed on the developments. A day earlier, during Pelosi’s visit, 22 Chinese military aircraft breached the line, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.
Pelosi’s visit to Taipei this week infuriated Chinese leaders, who claimed the high-level delegation was a violation of China’s territorial rights and a deliberate provocation amid deteriorating US-China relations. In response, Chinese authorities announced military exercises in six areas around Taiwan, in what Taiwanese officials said was tantamount to a “sea and air blockade.”
China’s ruling Communist Party has never governed Taiwan, but Beijing claims the de facto independent democracy of 23 million people is an inalienable part of its territory and threatens to seize it by force.
The White House had urged China not to overreact, saying Pelosi’s trip did not signal any change in US policy. But the Chinese military drills, to run through Sunday, represent Beijing’s efforts to establish a new normal of encroachment on its rival. In 2020, China denied the existence of the median line in the Taiwan Strait, after years of largely respecting the informal boundary that has helped prevent conflict in the 100 mile-wide waterway.
“Beijing may use the Pelosi visit as an opportunity to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” said Amanda Hsiao, senior China analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The Global Times, a state-run nationalist tabloid, quoted an anonymous Chinese military expert describing the drills as a “new beginning” for PLA activities around Taiwan, which would not be limited to their previous areas and would instead “regularly take place on Taiwan’s doorstep.”
China in the past has used times of spiking geopolitical tension to alter previously accepted norms of military behavior. In 2012, during a standoff with Japan over the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu, China launched coast guard patrols in the region. Those patrols continue today.
The six exclusion zones in this week’s maneuvers affect Taiwan on all sides, and for the first time include an area to the east of the island — a way of demonstrating China’s ability to target Taiwanese forces operating from bases in Hualien and Taitung.
“It’s quite clear they’re going to be simulating how they might blockade Taiwan in the future,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On Thursday, crowds gathered on Xiaoliuqiu, off the southwestern coast of Taiwan’s main island, to watch for signs of the Chinese firepower. Lee Chih-Hsiang, 38, who runs a hostel on the island, said his customers were mostly worried about whether the drills would affect their ability to go diving.
“I told them not to worry. If China was going to invade, they would have come over already,” he said. “It isn’t something we can stop. Worrying is no use. If we need to go to war, we go to war.”
Hsiao Wen-ming, chairman of Donggang’s Fishermen’s Association in Pingtung near Taiwan’s southern coast, said he is worried about the safety of local fishers. The possibility of more drills will make them uneasy about going out to sea, impacting livelihoods over the long term.
“The Communist Party just does whatever they want. What if it happens again?” he said.
Lu Li-shih, a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, said the goal of conducting drills in Taiwan’s territorial waters was to intimidate residents.
“They want regular residents to see,” he said, “The point is to hurt morale.”
Taiwan said the island’s armed forces had launched defense systems and were monitoring the surrounding areas. “We seek no escalation, but we don’t stand down when it comes to our security and sovereignty,” the defense ministry posted on Twitter.
The planned drills are closer to Taiwan than retaliatory Chinese exercises during the last Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995-1996. Three of the six exclusion areas encroach on the 12-nautical-mile littoral zone that Taiwan claims as its territorial waters.
During the 1990s standoff, China fired missiles that landed near the ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung, after Taiwan’s then-president Lee Teng-hui visited the United States.
This time, the crisis takes place at a sensitive time for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he prepares to take on a previous-breaking third term at a political meeting in the fall. The timing of the drills, after Pelosi left Taiwan, may signal Beijing’s desire to avoid direct confrontation with the United States.
“It’s been directed at Taiwan,” said Ivan Kanapathy, a former deputy senior Asia director on the White House National Security Council who served in the Trump and Biden administrations, of China’s response.
“But if military planes come within 12 nautical miles, it’ll be hard to ask Taiwan to exercise restraint. They would be well within their rights to shoot at something within their territory,” he said.
Chinese military experts told CCTV that the exclusion zones were meant to show China’s ability to control the narrowest point of the Taiwan Strait, as well as the point where the Bashi Channel, south of Taiwan, meets the Pacific Ocean, and shipping lanes that lead to the ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung.
Meng Xiangqing, director of the Strategic Research Institute of the PLA-run National Defense University, described the approach as “closing the door and beating the dog.”
Nakashima reported from Washington. Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.