China drills around Taiwan continue with code name 'Strait Thunder'

BEIJING/TAIPEI, April 2 (Reuters) - China's military began a second day of drills around Taiwan on Wednesday and for the first time gave them a code name, Strait Thunder-2025A, saying they were focused on honing the ability to blockade the island and make precision strikes.

The exercises follow a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, who China called a "parasite" on Tuesday, and come on the heels of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticised Beijing.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly denounced Lai as a "separatist". Lai, who won election and took office last year, rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

China's Eastern Theatre Command said the drills were taking place in the middle and southern areas of the Taiwan Strait. Some of Taiwan's outlying islands are just a few kilometres from China.

"The exercises focus on subjects of identification and verification, warning and expulsion, and interception and detention so as to test the troops' capabilities of area regulation and control, joint blockade and control, and precision strikes on key targets," it said in a statement.

Taiwan has denounced China for holding the drills, but has said it has seen no sign of live-fire exercises so far.

A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters there were more than 10 Chinese warships in Taiwan's "response zone" on Wednesday morning, and t...
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