Missiles rained down in the waters around Taiwan. Long-range rockets streaked into the sky. Chinese state television showed fighter jets and warships entering the Taiwan Strait as the military began an unprecedented series of live-fire drills encircling the self-governing island on 4 August. “Although this is an exercise resembling actual combat,” said Major General Meng Xiangqing of the National Defence University in Beijing, “it can at any time turn into real combat.”
The scale and the location of these exercises, which took place to the north, south and east of Taiwan, were clearly intended to signal that China was rehearsing a blockade of the island. They reignited concern that Beijing could soon try to seize the territory, which it claims as its own, by force.
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