China stages mock missile strikes on Taiwan, bombers with live missiles used in drills

BEIJING/TAIPEI — China staged mock missile strikes and dispatched fighter jets carrying live missiles and bombers on Friday, state television CCTV said, as part of two-day exercises Beijing has said were launched to punish Taiwan's new president, Lai Ching-te.

The bombers set up several attack formations in waters east of Taiwan, carrying out mock attacks in co-ordination with naval vessels, it added, as China tested its ability to "seize power" and control key areas of Taiwan.

The two days of drills in the Taiwan Strait and around groups of Taiwan-controlled islands near the Chinese coast, which a Taiwanese official said also included the mock bombing of foreign vessels, started just three days after Lai took office on Monday. Taiwan has condemned China's actions.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and denounces Lai as a "separatist". It strongly criticised his inauguration speech, in which he urged Beijing to stop its threats and said the two sides of the strait were "not subordinate to each other".

The Eastern Theatre Command of the People's Liberation Army said in a statement the exercises, dubbed "Joint Sword - 2024A", were to "test the ability to jointly seize power, launch joint attacks and occupy key areas."

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that several Chinese bombers conducted mock attacks on foreign vessels near the eastern end of the Bashi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, practising how to seize "total control" of areas west of the first island chain.

The first island chain refers to the area that runs from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China's coastal seas.

The official, speaking anonymously given the