Taiwan on Alert as Some China Warships Remain After Huge Drill

Taiwan has remained on high alert since China staged massive military drills around the island in previous days.

Naval and military officials kept an emergency maritime response centre running as it monitored Chinese naval manoeuvres, coast guard officials said.

The exercises named “Justice Mission 2025” saw China fire dozens of rockets towards Taiwan and deploy a large number of warships and aircraft near the island, in a show of force that drew concern from allies in the region and the west.

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Beijing announced late on Wednesday it had completed its drills, saying its military would remain on high alert and continue to strengthen their combat-readiness.

In reply, Taiwan’s defence ministry said that as there were still a significant number of Chinese planes and vessels in its response area, its armed forces would maintain an “appropriate contingency mechanism”. It did not elaborate.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive and militaristic provocations endanger regional security and stability, and have been condemned by democratic allies in the international community,” it said in a statement.

‘Trend toward reunification unstoppable’ – Xi

China’s President Xi Jinping struck a familiar tone on Taiwan in his New Year address shortly after Beijing’s announcement, repeating last year’s warning to what it regards as forces seeking Taiwan’s independence.

“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are bound by blood ties thicker than water, and the historical trend toward national reunification is unstoppable,” he said in a speech televised by state broadcaster CCTV.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, and it has not ruled out using force to take it under Chinese control. Taiwan, which rejects China’s claims, condemned the latest drills as a threat to regional security and a blatant provocation.

Map showing multiple zones around Taiwan marked by China for December 30 military drills, and past drill areas (Reuters).

Chinese ships began moving away from Taiwan on Tuesday night, according to Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council.

“The maritime situation has calmed down, with ships and vessels gradually departing,” she said in a post on Facebook late on Tuesday.

A Taiwan coast guard official told Reuters that 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 remained active.

There were more than 90 Chinese naval and coast guard vessels in the region, with many of them deployed in the South China Sea, near Taiwan and the East China Sea, two security officials in the region told Reuters earlier.

The officials, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the size of China’s maritime deployment had steadily increased since early this week.

200 warplanes, 27 missiles fired

China is in the middle of what has become a busy season for military exercises.

Taiwan’s defence ministry on Wednesday said 77 Chinese military aircraft and 25 navy and coast guard vessels had been operating around the island in the past 24 hours. The Guardian newspaper later said it involved 200 warplanes over two days with 27 missiles fired toward Taiwan, with several reportedly landing within 27 nautical miles from its coast.

Among them, 35 military planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line that separates the two sides, Taiwanese officials said.

As the war games unfolded, United States Ambassador to China David Perdue posted on X a photo of himself with the ambassadors from countries in the Quad, a grouping that includes the US, Australia, Japan and India.

In the post, he called the Quad a “force for good” working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific, but gave no details about what the meeting discussed or when it took place.

The US State Department said Perdue regularly meets with diplomats and Chinese officials to advance the US president’s agenda. “In line with these routine meetings he met with Quad Ambassadors in Beijing on December 19,” a State Department spokesperson told Reuters.

Domestic flights cancelled

The drills, China’s most extensive war games by coverage area to date, forced Taiwan to cancel dozens of domestic flights and dispatch jets and warships for monitoring. Soldiers ran rapid-response drills including putting up barricades at various locations.

China regards the exercises as a “necessary and just measure” to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, its Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han told reporters on Wednesday at a weekly briefing. They were “a stern warning against Taiwan independence separatist forces and external interference”, she added.

China’s state news agency Xinhua published an article summarising “three key takeaways” from the drills, which began 11 days after the United States announced a record $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan.

The simulated “encirclement” demonstrated the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to “press and contain separatist forces while denying access to external interference – an approach summarised as ‘sealing internally and blocking externally’,” the article said, citing Zhang Chi, a professor at the PLA National Defence University.

Despite the growing intensity of China’s war games, Beijing is unlikely to start a war at the cost of its reputation, said Lyle Goldstein, the Asia programme head of US think tank Defense Priorities.

“They threaten and bluster a lot, but ultimately (a war) would be very costly for China no matter what,” Goldstein said.