An H-6K bomber takes off from an airport to join in the military exercise conducted by the PLA Eastern Theater Command on August 19, 2023. Photo: 81.cn

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a sudden and swift joint exercise around the island of Taiwan on Saturday that was not anticipated by the island's defense authority despite the island's separatist deputy regional leader Lai Ching-te's provocative "stopovers" in the US, as the drills displayed the PLA's growing combat readiness and its capability to completely control the region, experts said on Sunday.

Marking the PLA's third major countermeasure operation against collusion between "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces and external interference forces since last August, the latest exercises shows that secessionist attempts will never succeed and will only sabotage peaceful future of the island, analysts said.

Between Saturday morning and Sunday morning, armed forces on the island of Taiwan detected 45 PLA aircraft and nine PLA vessels around the island, with 27 of the detected aircraft including Su-30, J-11 and J-10 fighter jets, a Y-9 command and control aircraft and a Z-9 anti-submarine warfare helicopter crossed the so-called median line of the Taiwan Straits or entered the island's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone, the defense authority on the island said in a press release on Sunday.

The report on the sudden significant increase in PLA activities around the island came after the PLA Eastern Theater Command on Saturday announced it had launched a sea and air joint combat readiness alert patrol and joint training exercises involving naval and aviation forces on Saturday.

In a move to test the troops' actual capabilities in joint operations, the exercises focus on training subjects including vessel-aircraft integration, seizing control and anti-submarine warfare.

A naval flotilla of the PLA Eastern Theater Command participates in a joint military exercise around the island of Taiwan on August 19, 2023. Photo: 81.cn

Spokesperson of the defense authority on the island said on Tuesday, four days before the drill, that there was no sign of large-scale exercises amid Lai's scheduled return from his trip on Friday, media on the island reported at the time. Clearly such an exercise was not expected by the defense authority on the island.

It shows that the PLA is ready for missions in the Taiwan Straits at any time, as its regular training sessions and large-scale exercises have fused together, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese mainland military expert, told the Global Times on Sunday.

With command, control and communication links among different military services and branches being interconnected and all kinds of training being carried out daily, the PLA can launch large-scale exercises at anytime, leaving no time for enemies to react or prepare before an operation, Fu said.

In the exercises, mission units including multiple Navy destroyers, frigates and missile boats, formations of Air Force fighters, bombers, 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 press release on the day.

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.

Fu said that the multiple intelligence sources likely include those from satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and early warning aircraft in dimensions including land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic space and cyberspace.

These intelligence sources are collated at the command center and distributed to combat units in real time, as the PLA's level of grasping, analyzing and using intelligence has reached a high level in informationized warfare, Fu said.

According to media reports, J-10C, J-11B, J-16, Su-30MK2 fighter jets, H-6K bombers, KJ-500 early warning aircraft, Type 054A frigates and DF-15 ballistic missile transporter erector launchers were among the weapons and equipment involved in the drills.

Fighter jets and bombers carried live munitions, including PL-10 short-range combat missiles, PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, KD-63 land attack cruise missiles and YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles, media reports show.

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 where the island of Taiwan is surrounded and approached from all directions, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said.

To the north of Taiwan island, PLA destroyers and frigates took advantageous positions through high-speed maneuvering and stealth approaching and launched mock strikes on hostile maritime targets.

To the east of Taiwan island, PLA flotillas organized beyond-visual-range strikes against naval targets and close-range counterattacks based on real time situations.

To the southwest of Taiwan island, surface vessels and anti-submarine helicopters formed a multidimensional anti-submarine network, searching for underwater targets in a wide region, quickly cross-verified suspect targets and launched mock attacks, while standing-by missile boats carried 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.

Fighters and bombers carrying live munitions flew to designated regions from multiple directions, established strike positions, coordinated with surface vessels and carried out mock attacks on hostile aircraft and vessels in a move to seize air superiority and control of the sea.

Supported by a land-sea-air joint intelligence system, the warplanes formed an integrated link, carried out joint reconnaissance, target distribution and mock precision strikes, as they tested their multi-domain awareness, coordination and joint blockade and strike capabilities.

The PLA again surrounded the island of Taiwan from all directions, leaving "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces and external interference forces with no chance, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Such a blockade and encirclement means that the PLA can suppress all military targets in and around the island of Taiwan, including those on the island or from the US, Song said.

J-10C fighter jets ready to take off from an airport on August 19, 2023 during the military drill conducted by the PLA Eastern Theater Command. Photo: 81.cn

Stern warning

The exercises are a stern warning of collusion between "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces and external interference forces, said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson at the PLA Eastern Theater Command, in a press release on Saturday.

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 before and after his trip to Paraguay.

When Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen made "transit" in the US in April, the PLA Eastern Theater Command held combat alert patrols and the "Joint Sword" exercise that encircled the island of Taiwan in waters from the east of the island. In August 2022, the PLA also held large-scale joint exercises around the island in response to then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's provocative visit to the island.

No matter in which way "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces or external interference forces provoke and sabotage the prospect of peaceful reunification, the Chinese mainland will always take resolute countermeasures to penalize them, experts said, noting that the more separatists provoke, the dimmer a peaceful future is for the island of Taiwan.

With each exercises, the PLA gains more capabilities and experience around the island of Taiwan, as well as actual control over the region, observers said.

"We are willing to create 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.