China performed a three-day military exercise starting on April 8 in which it encircled Taiwan with fighter jets, practiced ship-launched strikes, and simulated missile attacks. The exercise, code-named Joint Sword, began after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a meeting in Los Angeles with United States Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

In terms of aviation activity, this drill was among the biggest to date, with at least 91 military aircraft and 12 warships performing tactical maneuvers around the island on April 10. The aircraft included H-6 bombers armed with live missiles, which worked alongside the warships to “form a multidirectional, island-encompassing blockade situation,” Chinese state television said.

Together with missile and rocket forces on the mainland, the units “simulated joint precision strikes on key targets on the Taiwan Island and surrounding waters,” Chinese state television reported. A video posted to WeChat by the Eastern Theater Command showed an animation of simulated missile attacks from land, sea and air. While not technically accurate, the video shows a general representation of China’s capabilities and ambitions to attack Taiwan.

Ready for conflict: When the drills around Taiwan concluded on April 10, the People’s Liberation Army (pla) said it had “comprehensively tested the troops under actual combat conditions.” These practice exercises are explicitly aimed to prepare for a future armed confrontation with Taiwan and U.S. forces present in the area.

The troops in the theater are ready to fight all the time and can fight at any time, resolutely crushing any form of Taiwan independence separatism and foreign interference.
—pla’s Eastern Theater Command

Tensions over Taiwan: Tensions between China and the U.S. will only get worse as China prepares for potential conflict over Taiwan. China views Taiwan as its own sovereign territory, and it is not afraid to flex its military muscle and intimidate U.S. forces out of the area.

China has increasingly undertaken large-scale military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and around the island in response to visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan and vice versa. China previously performed similar military exercises around the island when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August.

The Trumpet said: China’s increasing belligerence alongside American weakness will eventually force Taiwan into submission. Back in the August 1998 Philadelphia Trumpet, editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote about China’s ambitions to force Taiwan to become part of China and America’s weakening will to counter it.

How could anyone fail to see that Taiwan is destined to become a part of mainland China? These 21 million people [now 23.6 million] are going to be forced into the Chinese mold; and it is going to happen for one reason: because of a pitifully weak-willed America.
—Gerald Flurry, “Taiwan Betrayal”

To learn more, read “Where Is the China-America Clash Leading?”