PLA naval forces were reported to be withdrawing from the waters around Taiwan this morning after an intense day of drills yesterday. “The maritime situation has calmed down, with ships and vessels gradually departing. As China has not announced the conclusion of the military exercises, the emergency response centre remains operational,” Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, said in a post on Facebook late on Tuesday. A Taiwan coast guard official told Reuters all 11 Chinese coast guard ships had left waters near Taiwan and were continuing to move away. A Taiwan security official said emergency response centres for the military and coast guard stayed active.
Currently there are more than 90 Chinese naval and coast guard vessels in the region, with many of them being deployed in the South China Sea, near Taiwan and the East China Sea in a large maritime show of force, two security officials in the region told Reuters.
Reuters reported yesterday that as part of drills rehearsing a blockade, China’s Eastern Theatre Command conducted 10 hours of live-fire exercises, launching rockets into waters to the north and south of the island. Chinese naval and air force units also simulated strikes on maritime and aerial targets and carried out anti-submarine drills around the island, while state media released images touting Beijing’s technological and military superiority and its ability to take Taiwan by force if necessary.
Xinhua cited Chinese military experts explaining three key “takeaways” from the exercise. Zhang Chi, a professor at the National Defense University, said the first notable feature was that “action began immediately at the outset.” As soon as the exercise started, participating forces conducted live-fire naval gun drills. He noted that this demonstrates the PLA’s ability to integrate peacetime training with wartime operations and sends a strong signal of its resolve to crush all separatist plots resolutely.
“This use of firepower combines long- and short-range strikes as well as high- and low-altitude capabilities,” Zhang said. “All energy facilities, major ports and military bases relied upon by ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces fall within the PLA’s firepower coverage, fully demonstrating the PLA’s powerful deterrence and joint strike capabilities against Taiwan Island and its surrounding areas.”
Li Jian, a researcher with the Naval Research Academy, said the second feature lies in the formation of a posture described as “encircling on three sides while leaving one direction open.”
“This sends a clear message that seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ through external support is a dead end, while returning to the motherland is the only viable path,” Li said.
Zhang added that the three-sided encirclement demonstrates the PLA’s capabilities of pressing and containing separatist forces while denying access to external interference—an approach summarized as “sealing internally and blocking externally.”
The third feature, Zhang said, is that the encirclement around the island is tightening further. “The PLA has fully exercised its capabilities to seize air and sea control over key areas and conduct long-range, precise strikes against important targets,” he said.
Reuters on Tuesday cited Lyle Goldstein, Asia program director at US-based think tank Defense Priorities and a leading American expert on China, as saying that the mainland “not only has vast numerical superiority, it now has qualitative superiority across the board in weaponry and probably in training as well.”
