A Type 052C guided missile destroyer of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy sails near the island of Taiwan during the combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises that encircle the island on April 8, 2023. Photo: Screenshot from China Central Television

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced on Saturday that it is holding a joint exercise around the island of Taiwan, following the return of the island’s separatist deputy regional leader Lai Ching-te from his “stopovers” in the US.

Military exercises serve as countermeasures to secessionist activities, and the more separatists provoke, the dimmer a peaceful future is for the island of Taiwan, observers said.

The PLA Eastern Theater Command is holding a sea and air joint combat readiness alert patrol and a joint training exercise involving naval and aviation forces on Saturday, said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson at the PLA Eastern Theater Command, in a press release on the day.

In a move to test the troops’ actual capabilities in joint operations, the exercise focuses on training subjects including vessel-aircraft integration and seizing control, Shi said.

Mission units including multiple Navy destroyers, frigates and missile boats, formations of Air Force fighters, early warning aircraft and electronic warfare aircraft as well as conventional missiles from the Rocket Force rapidly maneuvered and assembled toward preset regions and started combat deployment, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said in a separate press release later the day.

According to videos released by the PLA Eastern Theater Command, J-10C, J-11B, J-16, Su-30MK2 fighter jets, Type 054A frigates and DF-15 ballistic missile transporter erector launchers were among the weapons and equipment involved in the drills.

Fighter jets carried live munitions, including PL-10 short-range combat missiles and PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, videos show.

Working with support from multiple intelligence sources, these combat platforms operated as a system and coordinated with each other according to their missions, as they arrived in designated waters and air spaces around the island of Taiwan as planned, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said.

The PLA forces carried out a close-in deterrence mission from multiple directions, in multiple dimensions and through an extended time period, forming a situation that the island of Taiwan is surrounded and approached from all directions, the press release read.

PLA destroyers and frigates took advantageous positions through high-speed maneuvering and stealth approaching, with standing-by missile boats carrying out tracking and aiming at hostile mobile targets throughout their entire courses jointly with land-based missile assault groups, electronic countermeasure units as well as observation and communications forces, the China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

Warplanes seized air superiority and coordinated with warships in striking hostile vessels and aircraft in reconnaissance and patrol missions, CCTV said.

Drills were conducted for jointly seizing maritime and airspace control, submarine search and anti-submarine operation in the waters and airspace to the north and southwest of Taiwan island to test the capability of the command's forces in coordinated operations and systematic confrontation, according to the PLA Eastern Theater Command.

This is a stern warning to collusions between “Taiwan independence” secessionist forces and external interference forces, Shi said.

Lai, a candidate of the separatist Democratic Progressive Party for the 2024 Taiwan regional leader election, returned to the island on Friday after “stopovers” in the US during his trip to Paraguay.

When Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen made "stopovers" in the US in a similar manner in April, the PLA Eastern Theater Command held combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercise encircling the island of Taiwan in waters to the east of the island.

The latest exercise is a pointed countermeasure against Lai’s “stopovers” in the US, a Chinese mainland military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Saturday.

It marks the third major PLA countermeasure operation against collusion between “Taiwan independence” secessionist forces and external interference forces over the past a little more than a year, the expert said, referring to the large-scale joint exercise around the island in August 2022 in response to then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to the island as the first, and the combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercise in April in response to Tsai’s “stopovers” and her meeting with current US House speaker Kevin McCarthy as the second.

With each exercise, the PLA has gained more capabilities and experiences around the island of Taiwan, as well as the actual control over the region, the expert said.

“We are willing to created wide space for peaceful reunification, but will never leave any room for any kind of ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist activities. We will take resolute measures to penalize ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces and their acts and firmly safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee said in a statement on Saturday.