News Beat
Taiwan stays on high alert after China’s largest military drills encircle island
Taiwan kept its emergency systems on high alert on Wednesday, a day after China carried out sweeping live-fire drills around the self-ruled island, firing rockets and deploying large numbers of ships and aircraft in a show of force that alarmed the West.
Although Chinese vessels began moving away from Taiwan’s surrounding waters, authorities in Taipei said Beijing had not formally declared the end of the exercises, known as “Justice Mission 2025”, prompting continued monitoring across maritime and airspace zones.
“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 Facebook post late on Tuesday.
A coastguard official said all 11 Chinese coastguard ships previously operating near Taiwan had withdrawn and were continuing to move away.
However, a Taiwanese security official confirmed that emergency response centres for both the military and coastguard remained active.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning, China had operated 77 military aircraft and 25 navy and coastguard vessels around the island. Of those aircraft, 35 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait – an unofficial buffer that Beijing increasingly ignores.
The drills, described by China as its most extensive to date in terms of geographical coverage, disrupted daily life in Taiwan.
Authorities cancelled dozens of domestic flights on Tuesday, while the military scrambled jets and deployed warships to track Chinese movements. Soldiers were also seen conducting rapid-response exercises, including erecting barricades at key locations.
As the war games unfolded, ambassadors from the Quad grouping – the United States, Australia, Japan and India – met in Beijing on Tuesday. The Quad is an informal strategic partnership focused on security in the Indo-Pacific.
US ambassador David Perdue shared a photograph of the meeting on X, calling the group a “force for good” supporting a free and open region, but provided no further details. The US embassy declined to comment.
China defended the drills as a warning against both Taiwan’s independence movement and foreign involvement.
Zhang Han, spokesperson for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the exercises were a “necessary and just measure” to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity, calling them “a stern warning against Taiwan independence separatist forces and external interference”.
State news agency Xinhua said the exercises began 11 days after Washington announced a record $11.1bn (£8.7bn) arms package for Taiwan.
In a commentary outlining “three key takeaways”, Xinhua said the simulated encirclement of the island showed the People’s Liberation Army’s capacity to isolate Taiwan while preventing outside forces from intervening – an approach described as “sealing internally and blocking externally”.
The analysis cited Zhang Chi, a professor at the PLA National Defence University.
Taiwan’s government condemned the drills as provocative and destabilising. China claims the democratically governed island as its own territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control, a position firmly rejected in Taipei.
Britain added its voice to growing international concern.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said China’s military activity “increase[s] cross-strait tensions and the risk of escalation”, urging restraint and calling for the dispute to be resolved peacefully through dialogue, without coercion or force.
The Chinese embassy in London dismissed the remarks as a “misrepresentation of the facts”.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949, following the Chinese civil war.
The Taiwan Strait remains one of Asia’s most sensitive flashpoints, with Beijing sending warplanes and ships towards the island on a near-daily basis as pressure on Taipei continues to mount.
