Taiwan remained on high alert today after China staged massive military drills around the nation yesterday, 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 toward Taiwan and deploy a large number of warships and aircraft near the nation, in a show of force that drew concern from Western allies.
Taipei condemned the drills as a threat to regional security and a blatant provocation.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Chinese ships were moving away from Taiwan, but Beijing had yet to formally declare the end of the exercises, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said.
"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 center remains operational," she said in a post on Facebook late yesterday.
A Coast Guard Administration official said that all 11 Chinese coast guard ships had left waters near Taiwan and were continuing to move away.
A security official said emergency response centers for the military and coast guard stayed active.
The Ministry of National Defense today said that 77 Chinese military aircraft and 25 navy and coast guard vessels had been operating around the nation in the past 24 hours.
Among them, 35 military planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line that separates the two sides, it added.
As the war games unfolded, the ambassadors to China from countries that make up the Quad grouping formed to conduct security dialogue, convened in Beijing yesterday.
US Ambassador David Perdue posted on X a photograph of himself with the Australian, Japanese and Indian ambassadors at the US embassy. He called the Quad a "force for good" working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific region, but gave no details about the meeting.
The US 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 to monitor the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) movements.
Soldiers were seen running rapid-response drills, including putting up barricades at various locations.
China regarded the exercises as a "necessary and just measure" to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han (張晗) told reporters today at at 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 US announced a record US$11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan.
The simulated "encirclement" demonstrated the PLA'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 (張弛), a professor at the PLA National Defense University.
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A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
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