China holds live fire drills in East China Sea but Taiwan says none nearby

BEIJING - China’s military held long-range live-fire drills in the East China Sea on April 2 in an escalation of ongoing drills around Taiwan, saying it was practising precision strikes on port and energy facilities but Taiwan said none took place nearby.

The exercises follow a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, who China called a “parasite” on April 2, and come on the heels of US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticised Beijing.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly denounced Mr Lai as a “separatist”.

Mr Lai, who won election and took office in 2024, rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China’s Eastern Theatre Command said that on April 2 as part of the Strait Thunder-2025A exercise its ground forces had conducted long-range live-fire drills into the waters of the East China Sea, though it did not give an exact location.

“The drills involve precision strikes on simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities, and have achieved desired effects,” it said, without elaborating.

Taiwan’s benchmark stock index briefly slipped into the red after the announcement, before recovering its losses.

China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced late on April 1 a closed zone for shipping due to military drills until April 3 night in an area off the north part of the eastern province of Zhejiang, more than 500km from Taiwan.

A senior Taiwan defence official told Reuters that was outside Taiwan’s “response zone”, and Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had not detected any live fire drills around the island itself.

China’s military published a video it said was of the live fire drills that showed rockets, rather than ballistic missiles, being launched and hitting targets on land, and an animation of explosions over Taiwanese cities including Tainan, Hualien and Taichung, all home to military bases and ports.

The words “control energy corridors, disrupt supply routes, block clandestine routes to docks” then appear on the screen.

The aircraft carrier Shandong also took part in drills, to the east of Taiwan, focused on integrated operations between naval and air forces and “multi-dimensional blockade and control”, China’s military said.

Taiwan has denounced China for holding the drills.

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters there were more than 10 Chinese warships in Taiwan’s “response zone” on April 2 morning, and that China’s coast guard was participating with “harassment” drills.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected so far on April 2, 36 Chinese military aircraft, against 76 for the previous day, adding Taiwan had activated its own “rapid response exercise” for a second day saying it was needed to boost the alert level in case of a sudden Chinese move.

China’s recent pressure against Taiwan also included a call last week for people to email reports about separatist activity.

Mr Chiu Chui-cheng, head of Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council minister, said that given the rising risk of visiting China, people should carefully consider whether they need to go, including to Hong Kong and Macau.

War games

China had not formally named the April 1 drills. China called two rounds of major war games in 2024 around the island Joint Sword-2024A and Joint Sword-2024B.

Chinese state television said the April 1 activities were not part of Strait Thunder-2025A, hence they did not have that name, and cited a military expert as saying this demonstrated the armed forces’ ability to adapt to rapidly evolving combat situations.

“No matter what the name is, it cannot cover up the naked provocative nature of the drills and their mentality of threatening Taiwan’s people,” Taiwan defence ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang told reporters in Taipei.

China’s widely read Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said advanced equipment had been used, pointing to pictures from the military showing YJ-21 air-launched ballistic missiles slung under H-6K bombers.

The H-6K is an extended-range strike aircraft, while the YJ-21 is an advanced anti-ship weapon. H-6 aircraft, some of which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, have been involved in past drills around Taiwan, and also spotted over the disputed South China Sea.

Previous Chinese war games have also practised precision strikes and blockading the island.

Taiwan has not reported any travel disruptions because of the drills. Taiwan’s state refiner, CPC Corp, told Reuters that liquefied natural gas imports had been unaffected.

The United States, Taiwan’s most important international backer and main arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, condemned the exercises.

“Once again, China’s aggressive military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan only serve to exacerbate tensions and put the region’s security and the world’s prosperity at risk,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Japan and the European Union also expressed concern.

“The EU has a direct interest in the preservation of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. We oppose any unilateral actions that change the status quo by force or coercion,” an EU spokesperson said.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said China was “firmly opposed” to such comments, saying Taiwan was a purely internal affair that brooked no outside interference.

Taiwan has lived under the threat of Chinese invasion since 1949 when the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists, though the two sides have not exchanged fire in anger for decades. REUTERS