China Starts Live-Fire 'Strait Thunder-2025A' Drills

TaiwanPlus News

Chinese military drills around Taiwan are intensifying, with Beijing holding live-fire exercises in the East China Sea on Wednesday.

Transcript

00:00Chinese military drills around Taiwan are intensifying.

00:04On day two, Beijing has begun holding live-fire exercises in the East China Sea.

00:10We begin today with Jaime Ocon, who's been following developments from our newsroom in

00:14Taipei.

00:15Jaime, what exactly is China trying to do with these exercises?

00:19Well, like you said, this is day two of China's large-scale military exercises, which started

00:24on Tuesday and do not have an end date.

00:27But this morning, Beijing revealed that it will be conducting what it's calling Straight

00:31Thunder 2025A, and that that's the name of this part of the overall exercises.

00:37And already, China's saying that it's completed long-range live-fire shootings somewhere in

00:42the East China Sea.

00:43That's north of Taiwan, west of Japan, but we do not have a confirmed location from Taiwan's

00:48defense ministry.

00:49But what we do know so far is that Taiwan has reported 76 Chinese military aircraft,

00:55as well as 15 naval ships operating in the region.

00:57This is all activity recorded as of 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.

01:02There's also a Chinese aircraft carrier that's operating in waters southeast of Taiwan.

01:07The military says that it's scrambled its own fighter jets and has deployed air defense

01:11systems to monitor this activity.

01:13Now, yesterday, when the exercises started, Taiwan denounced these exercises, saying that

01:18they are incredibly provocative and that they hurt peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

01:23And a similar message is also being echoed by the White House earlier.

01:27That's the highest level U.S. response that we've gotten to these drills.

01:30Take a listen.

01:31The National Security Council briefed me on this this morning, and they said that the

01:36president is emphasizing the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait, encouraging

01:42the peaceful resolution of these cross-strait issues, reiterating our opposition to any

01:46unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion.

01:50That is directly from the National Security Advisor.

01:53Now, China says that these exercises, Strait Thunder 2025A, are supposed to practice precision

01:59strikes on simulated key infrastructure like ports and energy facilities.

02:04And then when you add in the fact that there's a Chinese aircraft carrier operating in the

02:07region, that's drawing a lot of concern from analysts that say that these drills are very

02:12realistic in how China would want to blockade Taiwan.

02:16For more on this, earlier I spoke to Lyle Morris.

02:18He's a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute based in Washington, D.C.

02:23As far as the naval assets in air, I mean, it's big.

02:27It's definitely one of the bigger ones.

02:30But I mean, a few things stuck out to me.

02:32First, the statement that the Eastern Theater Command issued, they talked about blockade

02:39of key areas and ceilings.

02:41So, you know, I feel like that they emphasize the blockade part in more direct language

02:48than in previous statements on exercises.

02:53So to me, I think that just speaks to the PLA becoming much more overt.

02:58It's signaling that it actually is practicing blockade scenarios, like it's being very clear

03:03using those words.

03:04There's been a lot of attention on China's Shandong aircraft carrier.

03:08Why is that?

03:09What's the most notable part about how this aircraft carrier is being used in these exercises?

03:15In this case, the Shandong is much further away in the southeast.

03:19So that's interesting to me because if you're looking at a blockade scenario, first of all,

03:24the east coast of Taiwan is going to be crucial to that campaign.

03:27But the further out you go, it's kind of testing more interdiction farther away from Taiwan.

03:33I'm assuming they're doing some kind of air maritime interdiction exercises.

03:39So I think the fact that it was farther away is actually a little bit more of a realistic

03:45scenario of a blockade because in a blockade, especially the aircraft carrier, they wouldn't

03:49be so close to Taiwan.

03:50They'd be farther out on the east coast.

03:52So that was noteworthy to me too.

03:55Now, it's important to remember, again, that these exercises do not have an end date.

03:59And so Taiwan's military says it's staying on alert and making sure it's responding to

04:03all of this activity.

04:05Taiwan's defense ministry says they're going to be holding a press conference later this

04:08afternoon where they're going to be releasing more information on these Chinese drills.

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