China holds military exercises around Taiwan as “punishment” days after new president takes office

Rupert Wingfield Hayes
in Taipei

Taiwan’s east coast has long been the island’s military stronghold.

It is located on the other side of a very high mountain range that rises about 4,000 meters above sea level.

This coast is rugged with few areas suitable as landing beaches. Because of this, Taiwan has built much of its military infrastructure along this coast, including a large underground air base inside a mountain near the city of Hualien.

It is also close to the southern islands of Japan and a natural resupply route.

For many decades, China did not have the ability to attack Taiwan from the east, nor to close air and sea space on that side of the island. However, since 2022 China has tried to show that it can now do both.

In August 2022, for the first time, it fired a ballistic missile over the surface of Taiwan into the Pacific Ocean.

Since then it has repeatedly sent naval and air patrols to the east. Today it is doing the same thing, only on a larger scale.

The goal is to show Taiwan that its eastern redoubt is now exposed to Chinese attack, and to show the Americans that any effort to resupply or reinforce Taiwan from the east is vulnerable to Chinese naval and missile attacks.