Mainland Chinese military completes Sword-2024A joint exercises near Taiwan

The exercises, called Joint Sword-2024A, involved “advancing,” “besieging,” “blocking,” “attacking,” “destroying” and “cutting off,” according to the message.

They were launched three days after Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te delivered an inauguration speech that Beijing denounced as a “confession of independence.”

Lai's office responded Saturday, calling the exercises a “blatant provocation to the international order.”

The PLA has sent aircraft and warships into the strait as a warning in the past, but this time the military aimed to test its military integration and ability to target military and political nerve centers of Taiwan – centers that appeared as strike targets on maps published by mainland China. military, according to continent analysts.

Lt. Col. Zhang Chi, an associate professor at the PLA National Defense University, told state broadcaster CCTV that such exercises could become a new normal for the continent.

The official Xinhua news agency cited Meng Xiangqing of the same university as saying the ships involved in the exercises were “unprecedented near the coast of Taiwan.”

It was also the first time that mainland coast guard vessels entered waters near Wuqiu and Dongyin islands in northern Taiwan, he said.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Saturday that 62 PLA planes and 27 warships operated near the island in the 24 hours through 6 a.m. Saturday. Of these, 47 planes crossed the median line, a theoretical midpoint in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing does not officially recognize but rarely crossed until 2019.

On the first day of the exercise, 49 planes and 19 ships of the PLA, in addition to seven coast guard ships, operated near the island, the ministry said. Among them, 35 planes crossed the center line.