China probes for key target weak spots with ‘paralysing’ Taiwan drills
By AFP
April 2, 2025
The seas around the self-ruled island have this week swarmed with Chinese warships in what Beijing has dubbed its "Strait Thunder" exercises
- Copyright AFP Hector RETAMAL
Oliver Hotham and Sam Davies, with Joy Chiang in Taipei
China’s military drills around Taiwan this week aim to send a clear message to the island’s leadership, analysts say — in the event of war, Beijing can cut them off from the outside world and grind them into submission.
And while previous drills have sought to test Taipei’s response times to Chinese incursion, Beijing says this week’s exercises are focused on its ability to strike key targets such as ports and energy facilities on the island.
“Taiwan is vulnerable from an energy point of view and China is playing up that vulnerability,” Dylan Loh at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University told AFP.
The air and sea around the self-ruled island have swarmed with Chinese jets and warships in what Beijing has dubbed its “Strait Thunder” exercises — punishment, it said, for the separatist designs of Taiwan’s “parasite” leader Lai Ching-te.
The drills are located in the middle and southern parts of the Taiwan strait — a vital artery for global shipping.
The island also imports nearly all of its energy supply and relies heavily on food imports, meaning in the event of a war, a blockade could paralyse the island — a fact Beijing is keen to press.
“Taiwan’s depth is shallow and has no buffer zone. Taiwan is also short of resources,” Major General Meng Xiangqing, professor at the PLA National Defence University, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“If Taiwan loses its sea supply lines, then the island’s resources will quickly be depleted, social order will fall into chaos, and people’s livelihoods will be affected,” he said.
“In the end, it will be the regular people of the island who suffer.”
– ‘Blockade’ –
One Taipei-based analyst said Beijing’s drills were shifting focus, from practising ways to prevent foreign forces coming to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a war, to asserting full control over the waters around the island.
“The containment and control drills are designed to test the ability to restrict supply routes to Taiwan and deter foreign commercial vessels from docking,” said Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
“The message to international shipping is that all destinations are open — as long as they’re not Taiwan,” he added.
While Tuesday’s exercises were focused on offensive operations against the island, Lin Ying-yu, a military expert and assistant professor at Tamkang University, said Wednesday’s “centre on practising a blockade of Taiwan”.
Such a tactic echoes techniques used in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has since February 2022 also launched thousands of strikes against energy infrastructure — to debilitating effect.
A graphic shared by the military made the objective clear: declaring “paralysing strikes” were being prepared and showing missiles raining down on the island’s southern port city of Kaohsiung.
Taiwan’s leaders, it warned, were “heading for a dead end”.
Another touted the army’s skills in “controlling energy channels, cutting off supply arteries,” — and showed graphics of explosions on targets on the island’s east, west and south.
– ‘Deadly surprise attack’ –
The drills are driven by growing fears in Beijing that its long-awaited unification with Taipei is further away than ever.
Bonny Lin, Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, told AFP there was “an assessment in Beijing that China needs to do more to step up the process for unification with Taiwan”.
That included, she said, “punishing Taiwan for any perceived provocative activities and more firmly countering potential foreign intervention to assist Taiwan”.
Beijing is also seeking to highlight just how unpredictable it can be in attacking the island.
“The opponent won’t know which card we will play, including when we’ll play it,” Fu Zhengnan, an expert at the Chinese military’s Academy of Military Science, told CCTV.
“The PLA is becoming more and more like an unpredictable magician,” he said.
This week’s drills come just days after US defence chief Pete Hegseth vowed the United States would ensure “deterrence” across the Taiwan Strait in the face of China’s “aggressive and coercive” actions.
Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said “Straight Thunder” was testing that claim.
“China wants to impose stress test after stress test and create an opportunity where the Trump administration will have to respond,” he said.
China’s military drills around Taiwan this week aim to send a clear message to the island’s leadership, analysts say — in the event of war, Beijing can cut them off from the outside world and grind them into submission.
And while previous drills have sought to test Taipei’s response times to Chinese incursion, Beijing says this week’s exercises are focused on its ability to strike key targets such as ports and energy facilities on the island.
“Taiwan is vulnerable from an energy point of view and China is playing up that vulnerability,” Dylan Loh at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University told AFP.
The air and sea around the self-ruled island have swarmed with Chinese jets and warships in what Beijing has dubbed its “Strait Thunder” exercises — punishment, it said, for the separatist designs of Taiwan’s “parasite” leader Lai Ching-te.
The drills are located in the middle and southern parts of the Taiwan strait — a vital artery for global shipping.
The island also imports nearly all of its energy supply and relies heavily on food imports, meaning in the event of a war, a blockade could paralyse the island — a fact Beijing is keen to press.
“Taiwan’s depth is shallow and has no buffer zone. Taiwan is also short of resources,” Major General Meng Xiangqing, professor at the PLA National Defence University, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“If Taiwan loses its sea supply lines, then the island’s resources will quickly be depleted, social order will fall into chaos, and people’s livelihoods will be affected,” he said.
“In the end, it will be the regular people of the island who suffer.”
– ‘Blockade’ –
One Taipei-based analyst said Beijing’s drills were shifting focus, from practising ways to prevent foreign forces coming to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a war, to asserting full control over the waters around the island.
“The containment and control drills are designed to test the ability to restrict supply routes to Taiwan and deter foreign commercial vessels from docking,” said Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
“The message to international shipping is that all destinations are open — as long as they’re not Taiwan,” he added.
While Tuesday’s exercises were focused on offensive operations against the island, Lin Ying-yu, a military expert and assistant professor at Tamkang University, said Wednesday’s “centre on practising a blockade of Taiwan”.
Such a tactic echoes techniques used in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has since February 2022 also launched thousands of strikes against energy infrastructure — to debilitating effect.
A graphic shared by the military made the objective clear: declaring “paralysing strikes” were being prepared and showing missiles raining down on the island’s southern port city of Kaohsiung.
Taiwan’s leaders, it warned, were “heading for a dead end”.
Another touted the army’s skills in “controlling energy channels, cutting off supply arteries,” — and showed graphics of explosions on targets on the island’s east, west and south.
– ‘Deadly surprise attack’ –
The drills are driven by growing fears in Beijing that its long-awaited unification with Taipei is further away than ever.
Bonny Lin, Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, told AFP there was “an assessment in Beijing that China needs to do more to step up the process for unification with Taiwan”.
That included, she said, “punishing Taiwan for any perceived provocative activities and more firmly countering potential foreign intervention to assist Taiwan”.
Beijing is also seeking to highlight just how unpredictable it can be in attacking the island.
“The opponent won’t know which card we will play, including when we’ll play it,” Fu Zhengnan, an expert at the Chinese military’s Academy of Military Science, told CCTV.
“The PLA is becoming more and more like an unpredictable magician,” he said.
This week’s drills come just days after US defence chief Pete Hegseth vowed the United States would ensure “deterrence” across the Taiwan Strait in the face of China’s “aggressive and coercive” actions.
Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said “Straight Thunder” was testing that claim.
“China wants to impose stress test after stress test and create an opportunity where the Trump administration will have to respond,” he said.
By AFP
April 1, 2025
This frame grab from video taken on March 31, 2025 and released by the Taiwan Defence Ministry on April 1, 2025 shows Chinese military vessels in waters off Taiwan
- Copyright TAIWAN DEFENCE MINISTRY/AFP Handout
China has launched some of its biggest military drills around Taiwan in months, in what it said was a “warning” to separatist forces on the island.
Here, AFP looks at the Taiwan Strait, a critical waterway and growing military flashpoint:
– Where is the Taiwan Strait? –
The strait separates the eastern Chinese province of Fujian from the main island of Taiwan, home to around 23 million people.
At its narrowest point, just 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) of windswept water separates the two major landmasses, and several outlying Taiwanese islands — including Kinmen and Matsu — lie just a few kilometres from the Chinese coastline.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since Mao Zedong’s communist army won a civil war and sent the opposition nationalist forces fleeing across the strait in 1949.
Beijing has maintained ever since that the island is part of its territory, and has not ruled out using force to bring it under control.
– Why is it important? –
The strait is a critical artery for global shipping through which a huge volume of trade passes every day.
Around $2.45 trillion of goods — more than a fifth of global maritime trade — transited the strait in 2022, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Taiwan plays an outsized role in the global economy thanks to producing over 90 percent of the world’s most advanced computing chips, used in everything from smartphones to cutting-edge military equipment.
Analysts say a Chinese invasion would deal a catastrophic blow to these supply chains.
More minor disruptions, such as a blockade of the island, would cause costly shipping cancellations and diversions that would impact worldwide consumers.
“In the event of a long conflict over Taiwan, financial markets would tank, trade would shrivel, and supply chains would freeze, plunging the global economy into a tailspin,” Robert A. Manning, a China expert at Washington’s Stimson Center, wrote last year.
A report by the Rhodium Group estimated that a blockade of the island could cost firms dependent on Taiwan’s chips $1.6 trillion in revenue annually.
An invasion would also endanger Taiwan’s way of life, embodied by its democratic freedoms and boisterous elections.
It would also risk a wider conflict because the United States, while not recognising Taiwan diplomatically, has an agreement to help the island defend itself.
– What do we know about the drills? –
China announced the drills early on Tuesday morning, describing them as a “stern warning and forceful deterrent” against alleged separatist forces on the island.
Beijing said the exercises — which unlike previous iterations do not have a formal name — “focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority” as well as “assault on maritime and ground targets”.
They also, crucially, practice a “blockade of key areas and sea lanes to test the joint operation capabilities of the troops” in the event of war.
Taiwan dispatched its own aircraft and ships, and deployed land-based missile systems, in response to the exercises and accused Beijing of being the world’s “biggest troublemaker”.
– Has this happened before? –
China has ramped up pressure on Taiwan in recent years and has staged four large-scale military exercises around the island since 2022.
In October, Chinese forces deployed fighter jets, bombers and warships in areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan, and simulated a rocket strike in drills called “Joint Sword-2024B”.
The manoeuvres came after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te gave a speech on Taiwan’s national day that Beijing viewed as a provocative move towards independence.
Beijing launched other drills — “Joint Sword-2024A” — in May following Lai’s inauguration, and encircled Taiwan in April 2023 after his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen met with then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Taipei military expert Su Tzu-yun told AFP that Tuesday’s drills appeared to be of similar size to the “Joint Sword” exercises in May and October.
Taiwan in February also said China had staged a combat drill with aircraft and warships in “live-fire exercises” about 40 nautical miles (74 kilometres) off the island’s south. China dismissed the accusations as “hype”.
Several major crises flared across the strait in preceding decades, most recently in 1995 to 1996 when China conducted missile tests around Taiwan.
China has launched some of its biggest military drills around Taiwan in months, in what it said was a “warning” to separatist forces on the island.
Here, AFP looks at the Taiwan Strait, a critical waterway and growing military flashpoint:
– Where is the Taiwan Strait? –
The strait separates the eastern Chinese province of Fujian from the main island of Taiwan, home to around 23 million people.
At its narrowest point, just 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) of windswept water separates the two major landmasses, and several outlying Taiwanese islands — including Kinmen and Matsu — lie just a few kilometres from the Chinese coastline.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since Mao Zedong’s communist army won a civil war and sent the opposition nationalist forces fleeing across the strait in 1949.
Beijing has maintained ever since that the island is part of its territory, and has not ruled out using force to bring it under control.
– Why is it important? –
The strait is a critical artery for global shipping through which a huge volume of trade passes every day.
Around $2.45 trillion of goods — more than a fifth of global maritime trade — transited the strait in 2022, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Taiwan plays an outsized role in the global economy thanks to producing over 90 percent of the world’s most advanced computing chips, used in everything from smartphones to cutting-edge military equipment.
Analysts say a Chinese invasion would deal a catastrophic blow to these supply chains.
More minor disruptions, such as a blockade of the island, would cause costly shipping cancellations and diversions that would impact worldwide consumers.
“In the event of a long conflict over Taiwan, financial markets would tank, trade would shrivel, and supply chains would freeze, plunging the global economy into a tailspin,” Robert A. Manning, a China expert at Washington’s Stimson Center, wrote last year.
A report by the Rhodium Group estimated that a blockade of the island could cost firms dependent on Taiwan’s chips $1.6 trillion in revenue annually.
An invasion would also endanger Taiwan’s way of life, embodied by its democratic freedoms and boisterous elections.
It would also risk a wider conflict because the United States, while not recognising Taiwan diplomatically, has an agreement to help the island defend itself.
– What do we know about the drills? –
China announced the drills early on Tuesday morning, describing them as a “stern warning and forceful deterrent” against alleged separatist forces on the island.
Beijing said the exercises — which unlike previous iterations do not have a formal name — “focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority” as well as “assault on maritime and ground targets”.
They also, crucially, practice a “blockade of key areas and sea lanes to test the joint operation capabilities of the troops” in the event of war.
Taiwan dispatched its own aircraft and ships, and deployed land-based missile systems, in response to the exercises and accused Beijing of being the world’s “biggest troublemaker”.
– Has this happened before? –
China has ramped up pressure on Taiwan in recent years and has staged four large-scale military exercises around the island since 2022.
In October, Chinese forces deployed fighter jets, bombers and warships in areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan, and simulated a rocket strike in drills called “Joint Sword-2024B”.
The manoeuvres came after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te gave a speech on Taiwan’s national day that Beijing viewed as a provocative move towards independence.
Beijing launched other drills — “Joint Sword-2024A” — in May following Lai’s inauguration, and encircled Taiwan in April 2023 after his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen met with then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Taipei military expert Su Tzu-yun told AFP that Tuesday’s drills appeared to be of similar size to the “Joint Sword” exercises in May and October.
Taiwan in February also said China had staged a combat drill with aircraft and warships in “live-fire exercises” about 40 nautical miles (74 kilometres) off the island’s south. China dismissed the accusations as “hype”.
Several major crises flared across the strait in preceding decades, most recently in 1995 to 1996 when China conducted missile tests around Taiwan.
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