China Winds Down Largest-Ever Maritime War Games Near Taiwan

By Yimou Lee and Liz Lee

TAIPEI/BEIJING, Dec 31 (Reuters) – Taiwan remained on high alert on Wednesday after China staged massive military drills around the island the previous day, keeping its emergency maritime response center running as it monitored Chinese naval maneuvers, the coast guard 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.

Beijing announced late on Wednesday the completion of the drills, saying its military would remain on high alert and continue to strengthen their combat-readiness.

In reply, Taiwan’s defense 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.

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.

Chinese ships were moving away from Taiwan by 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 centers 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. 

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

Taiwan’s defense 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.

Among them, 35 military planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line that separates the two sides, it added.

‘STERN WARNING’

As the war games unfolded, the ambassadors to China from countries in the Quad grouping, formed to conduct security dialog, met in Beijing on Tuesday.

United States Ambassador David Perdue posted on X a photo of himself with the Australian, Japanese and Indian ambassadors at the U.S. embassy. He called the Quad a “force for good” working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific but gave no details about the meeting. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the meeting.

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 summarizing “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 summarized 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 program head of U.S. 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.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee in Taipei and Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Stephen Coates and Michael Perry)

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