“LIVE-FIRE TRAINING”
China on Tuesday morning said it had deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters and bombers “to conduct drills on subjects of identification and verification, warning and expulsion, simulated strikes, assault on maritime targets, as well as anti-air and anti-submarine operations”.
A statement from the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said the exercises in the waters to the north and south of Taiwan “tested capabilities of sea-air coordination and integrated blockade and control”.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that a core theme of the exercises was a “blockade” of key Taiwanese ports, including Keelung in the north and Kaohsiung in the south.
However, senior Taiwanese military official Hsieh Jih-sheng told reporters that the intended blockade “essentially did not happen”.
“The main reason they did this was to make the public believe that they had achieved the goal they were pursuing,” he said.
Chinese authorities published a map of five large zones around Taiwan where the war games would take place. They were due to finish at 6pm on Tuesday, although there was not yet any confirmation they had ended.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-taiwan-military-drills-second-day-5754036
