The PLA Eastern Theater Command Rocket Force launches live-fire assaults with multiple types of conventional missiles at several designated sea areas to the east of Taiwan island on August 4, 2022. Photo: IC

The armed forces on the island of Taiwan recently simulated the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) "turning drills into an attack," a move Chinese mainland experts said on Thursday is only a powerless political show and exposes the guilty conscience of "Taiwan independence" secessionists.

Carried out in front of media in the island's eastern county of Taitung on Wednesday, the exercise simulated a scenario in which the Chinese mainland "suddenly turns one of its regular drills around the island into an actual attack," Reuters reported on the day.

The two-day exercise was held at sea, on land and in the air, the Associated Press reported.

Since then US house speaker Nancy Pelosi's provocative visit to the island of Taiwan in August 2022, when the PLA launched a large-scale exercises blockading the island, the PLA has made combat patrols and training around the island a daily routine, observers said.

Similar PLA drills also took place on Wednesday concurrently with the exercise by the island, as the island's defense authority said in a press release on Thursday morning that it detected 33 PLA aircraft and six PLA vessels operating around the island over the past day, with 14 of the detected aircraft crossing the so-called median line of the Taiwan Straits and entering the island's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone.

The exercise by the island of Taiwan is just a political show deceiving itself and hyping "threats" from the Chinese mainland, as it has little military significance in the face of the overwhelming capabilities of the PLA, experts said.

Fu Qianshao, a Chinese mainland military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday that the separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities on the island of Taiwan are afraid of the PLA's routine activities around the island because such regular exercises have greatly compressed the defense capabilities of the island's armed forces and put significant pressure on them.

If the situation comes to that, and the PLA launches a reunification-by-force operation, the island will have no chance of reacting even if it prepares through training, Fu said.

There is no reason to be afraid of the PLA if the DPP authorities do not seek "independence," observers said.

The Chinese mainland pledges to show the utmost sincerity and make the greatest efforts for the prospect of peaceful reunification, but it makes no promise to renounce the use of force and reserves the option of taking all necessary means against interference by external forces and the very small number of "Taiwan independence" separatists and their activities.

"Resisting reunification by force has no way out, and there is no way to stop the eventual reunification. Our wish is peaceful reunification, but if the Taiwan secessionists insist on taking the wrong path, use of force might just become the only way," Fu said, urging the DPP authorities to see the situation clearly and choose a path of resolving the cross-Straits question peacefully.

In a move analysts said constituted interfering in the Taiwan question, the US Navy's aircraft carriers the USS Carl Vinson and USS Theodore Roosevelt drilled with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter destroyer JS Ise from Monday to Thursday in the Philippine Sea, the USNI News, the website of the US Naval Institute, reported on Wednesday.

The more accurate location of the US-Japan joint exercise is in the West Pacific waters to the east of the island of Taiwan, according to a USNI News graphic tracking US aircraft carriers released on Monday.

The exercise included "air defense drills, sea surveillance, cross-deck exercises and tactical maneuvers to advance unique high-end warfighting capability," the USNI News quoted a US 7th Fleet statement as saying.

The US and Japan are two external forces actively engaged in interfering in the Taiwan question, and the PLA's routine drills, often also held in waters to the east of the island of Taiwan, are also aimed at denying their potential military interference, analysts said.

Song Zhongping, another Chinese mainland military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday that the US and Japan are enhancing military cooperation mainly aimed at containing China.

The US recently gained access to more military bases in the Philippines, and Japan is also boosting military cooperation with Manila, so the Philippines, as well as more US allies, could join military exercises on China's doorstep, including near the island of Taiwan and in the South China Sea, Song said.

"We must increase vigilance over these trends," Song said.