DETERRING FOREIGN HELP
Videos of the exercise released by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command showed its vessels and planes came within 24 nautical miles of Taiwan on all sides of the island, which Beijing claims as its own.
The aim of the drills was to show that they could encircle Taiwan in a blockade and deter foreign powers from intervening, Zhao said.
That would be crucial if a conflict erupted.
“An invasion by China would require the PLA to carry out joint counter-intervention operations against the United States, which Beijing believes will almost certainly intervene, and now possibly with allies like Australia and Japan, maybe even the Philippines,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst at RAND Corporation.
Although the United States has long followed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan, US President Joe Biden has said he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan.
PRECISION TARGETING
The PLA also said it carried out virtual simulations showing how its forces could execute targeted missile attacks on Taiwan.
Zhang Chi, a senior colonel and assistant professor with National Defence University, told Xinhua that the simulated precision attacks meant that China could eliminate Taiwanese leaders in a “Zhanshou” operation, which translates as “beheaded”. In Western military parlance, such attacks are referred to as “decapitation strikes”.
The drills were a response to a recent meeting in California between US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, whom China views as a separatist.