China launched on Thursday what it called "Joint Sword-2024A" exercises, surrounding Taiwan with warplanes and navy ships and vowing "stern punishment" of separatist forces on the island.
And as state broadcaster CCTV aired an online livestream that lasted more than six hours featuring martial tunes and a video of young soldiers rushing to their stations on a loop, talking heads lined up to hail the drills as a righteous response to Taiwan's new leadership sworn in three days ago.
Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, using language more typical of nationalist tabloids, warned that those seeking Taiwan's independence would be left with "heads broken and blood flowing".
China's military released a series of graphics showing off the equipment involved in the mission, from jets to ballistic missiles and artillery, boasting of their "cross-strait lethality" and emblazoning them with bloodstained text proclaiming that a "rain of arrows eliminates independence".
In one, a hail of rockets stream towards a small island, while in another a jet targets a wooded area.
The United States switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979 but remains the island's most important ally and supplier of military hardware.
The military warned on Thursday that "relying on foreigners is a harmful path" and that independence for Taiwan was a "dead end".
State media also lined up a series of commentators to tout the military's rehearsal of a full-scale blockade of the island to cut it off from its allies and energy imports.
Tong Zhen, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, told the nationalist Global Times newspaper the exercises showcased the military's "ability to conduct an all-round attack on the entire island".
That would be done, he said, "without any blind spots" and would allow the military to "form an intimidating situation from the east to the west" of the island.
- 'Stuffed into a birdcage' -
Zhang Chi, a professor at Beijing's China National Defense University, told CCTV the drills aimed to "strangle" Taiwan's critical Kaohsiung port to "severely impact" its foreign trade.
They would cut off "Taiwan's lifeline of energy imports" as well as "block the support lines that some US allies provide to 'Taiwan independence' forces", he said.
Others gloated that Taiwan's new President Lai Ching-te was getting his comeuppance for an inauguration speech in which he vowed to defend Taiwan's democracy from Beijing's threats.
Lai had been "directly seized by the mainland's military might and stuffed into a birdcage", former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin posted on social media platform Weibo to his millions of followers.
Nationalists seethed online over Lai's speech and warned Taiwan against efforts at independence, some using obscenities to make their point that the "one-China principle is unquestionable".
"The unification of the motherland is unstoppable," a Weibo user said of the military's announcement of the drills.
Taiwanese shrug off China's military muscle flexing
Taipei (AFP) May 23, 2024 -
As Beijing's ships and warplanes encircled Taiwan on Thursday, television anchors on the self-ruled island focused instead on a store razed by fire, a proposed ban on ambulance sirens, and a restaurant scandal involving an influencer.
Coverage of these hyper-local news stories eclipsed that of China's military drills, launched in response to what Beijing's military called "separatist acts of 'Taiwan independence' forces".
The exercises come as a "punishment" three days after the island swore in President Lai Ching-te, who China regards as a "dangerous separatist".
Popular news channel TVBS reported on the drills, but flicked quickly back to breaking news of truck drivers for an online retail service complaining about "sweat-shop" conditions.
Democratic Taiwan is accustomed to frequent threats from China, which claims the island as part of its territory.
Beijing has said it will never renounce the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has in recent years upped the rhetoric of "unification" being "inevitable".
But Taiwan has its own government, military and currency, as well as a population of 23 million that increasingly considers its identity distinct from that of the Chinese.
"Basically they want reunification, which means they want to devour us. This is simple," said Hung, a 65-year-old taxi driver in Taipei, who scoffed at the drills.
"They are just raising a fuss. They won't really stage a war," he said.
"If they really want to stage a war, it would be missiles that are flying over," he said, adding that the drills were expected given that Lai is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has championed Taiwan's sovereignty.
"As long as the DPP is ruling, (China) won't be nice."
China launched its largest-ever war games in August 2022 in response to a visit to Taipei by then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Last year, when Taiwan's former president Tsai Ing-wen made a stopover in California to meet with another top US official, China also reacted by war-gaming a military encirclement of the island.
Like Lai, Tsai was part of the ruling DPP, and had repeatedly vowed to defend Taiwan's sovereignty.
- 'Not stressed' -
In Lai's inaugural speech on Monday, he delivered an oft-repeated DPP line that the Republic of China -- Taiwan's official name -- and the People's Republic of China "are not subordinate to each other".
In the outlying Taiwanese island of Kinmen -- which has been the site of heightened tensions as Chinese coast guard ships have increasingly breached "restricted waters" -- tour guide Puan Chang said it was "life as usual".
"I am not stressed over this," he said. "I don't think (China) would actually launch an attack. I think it's aimed at intimidating the government after Lai Ching-te takes office."
Tourists in Kinmen stood on the beach, struggling to see the Chinese city of Xiamen -- located just five kilometres (three miles) away -- through heavy fog shrouding the island.
In the capital Taipei, one office worker shrugged off the heightened tensions, saying that "the stock market is stable today".
Taiwan's main stock index finished up .26 percent on Thursday, extending a winning inauguration week.
"I think people are used to the intimidation," said Lin, 49, who declined to give her full name.
Military drills were nowhere to be found in Google's 18 most-searched terms for Taiwan, where the top-trending term Thursday was popular singer Gen Hoshino.
E-commerce worker Candice Chen, 41, said she was more concerned about recent news of Taiwan's opposition groups trying to pass bills that would expand the powers of parliament.
The issue has dominated Taiwanese news in the past week after lawmakers got into a physical brawl in parliament, and on Tuesday thousands of protesters held an all-day rally outside the building.
"Instead of worrying about the recent military drills, we are more concerned about the black box operations (lack of transparency) in our parliament," Chen said.
She added that China was just "flexing their muscles".
"We have to get on with our lives. Instead of worrying about all that, I should just live my normal life," she told AFP.
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