Air superiority and long-range strikes: what China’s war games say about how it might assault Taiwan

• China’s military is conducting massive war games all around Taiwan.
• The exercise includes current capabilities like drones, fighter jets, warships, and long-range fires.
• China also offered an AI-made glimpse at the future warfare weapons it wants.

Beijing is calling its massive war games around Taiwan a stern warning; however, they’re also practice, offering insight into how China is thinking about a war for the island.

The big military exercise, “Justice Mission-2025,” that kicked off Monday is the latest large-scale Chinese drill aimed at preparing the People’s Liberation Army for action such as bringing combined arms to bear against Taiwan, seizing control of the skies, isolating and assaulting the island, and combating foreign interference.

China mobilized its army, navy, air, and rocket forces for drills around Taiwan with a focus on combat readiness in the sea and air, blocking off key ports and areas, and what it said was “all-dimensional deterrence outside the island chain.”

On the southeast side of the island, China’s military has been using bombers and anti-ship missiles against mock maritime targets, clearing the way for the navy’s amphibious assault ships. The exercises, China’s Eastern Theater Command said, are testing how well air and naval forces operate together. There was also an emphasis on eliminating targets at “maximum range,” key to cutting risk and keeping hostile forces at arm’s length.

To the north and southwest of Taiwan, the Chinese military’s destroyers, frigates, fighters, bombers, and drones, together with the long-range rocket forces, have been practicing coordinated seizure and dominance, pursuing training targets on land, at sea, and in the air, the way it might in a real fight. In recent years, China has put greater emphasis on more realistic training.

In the air, Chinese fighters, airborne early warning aircraft, and electronic warfare planes have been training to effectively secure air superiority, while action at sea has been focused on defeating both surface ships and submarines.

“With vessels and aircraft approaching Taiwan island in close proximity from different directions,” a command spokesperson said, “troops of multiple services engage in joint assaults to test their joint operations capabilities.”

Video footage shared by the Eastern Theater Command showed preparations for the training, including trucks carrying missiles, fighter jets and other aircraft, and warship activity.

The training isn’t entirely simulated and includes live-fire activities against mock targets. The live-fire exercises will take place in five maritime and airspace zones around Taiwan on Tuesday.

China’s coast guard is also on patrol in the waters surrounding Taiwan. The island’s defense ministry said on Monday afternoon that it had detected 14 Chinese navy warships and 14 coast guard vessels around Taiwan and outlying islands. Additionally, 89 aircraft, including J-10 and J-16 fighters, JH-7 fighter-bombers, and KJ-500 early warning and control planes, had been detected around Taiwan as well. None of the ships or planes violated Taiwan’s territorial airspace or waters.

The drills show how China’s military plans to use its current forces in a coordinated attack, but in official releases, there were also indications about its future ambitions. On Monday, China released an artificial intelligence-made short video on a Taiwan fight.

The video showed various animals, like eagles and bees, transforming into uncrewed aerial vehicles, sea creatures becoming warships, and wolves turning into uncrewed ground robots. The AI-generated video, titled “Joint Operations to Thwart ‘Taiwan Independence’ Attempts,” also featured a pack of humanoid drones carrying rifles and walking through a war-torn city.

The propaganda video, despite featuring some technology not known to exist, suggests China is aiming for an integrated approach using a range of uncrewed systems and advanced capabilities, like submarines and warships and aircraft. Combining assets has been an important part of the latest drills. Effectively integrating wide-ranging combat capabilities for combined arms warfare is a challenging feat though.

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Jeffrey L. Klump

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