China's shows of force against Taiwan

China launched military drills around Taiwan on Monday, sending jets and warships in a "warning" to "separatists" on the self-ruled island.

It is the latest show of force by Beijing, which sees Taiwan as its territory and vows to take it back by force if necessary.

AFP takes a look at China's increasing efforts at military intimidation around Taiwan in recent years:

- Warplane incursions -

China has ramped up warplane flights into Taiwan's so-called Air Defence Identification Zone since the 2016 election of former president Tsai Ing-wen, who considers the island "already independent".

Taipei said in April 2023 it had detected the long-range TB-001 Chinese combat drone and 37 other Chinese aircraft circling Taiwan.

Local media said it was the first time Taiwan's defence ministry had reported a Chinese military aircraft circling the island from one end of the Taiwan Strait's median line, which China does not recognise, to the other.

Beijing now deploys planes and naval vessels around Taiwan on a near-daily basis, with Taipei authorities detecting as many as 43 Chinese military aircraft around the island over a 24-hour period last month.

- Pelosi backlash -

Beijing unleashed its largest military exercises around Taiwan in August 2022, after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged China's Communist Party government by visiting the island.

The drills ran for at least five days and involved what Beijing called a "conventional missile firepower assault" in waters to the east of Taiwan.

They were followed by more drills that month after another delegation of US lawmakers visited Taipei.

A record 446 warplanes entered Taiwan's air defence zone that month, according to Taipei's defence ministry.

Just a month later Taiwanese forces shot down a drone for the first time on tiny Shiyu Islet, which lies between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan's Kinmen islands.

China went on to deploy 71 warplanes in military exercises around Christmas that year, which the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) said were a "strike drill" responding to unspecified "provocations" and "collusion" between the United States and Taiwan.

- Simulated blockade -

Cross-strait tensions spiked again in April 2023, when China held three days of military drills after a meeting between Tsai and Pelosi's successor Kevin McCarthy.

The war games saw Beijing simulate targeted strikes on Taiwan and encirclement of the island, including "sealing" it off. Chinese state media reported dozens of planes had practised an "aerial blockade".

One of China's two aircraft carriers, the Shandong, also participated in the exercises.

The drills were followed by a rocket launch from northwest China that Taiwan authorities said had sent debris falling into the sea north of the island.

In August, a stopover in the United States by then-vice president Lai Ching-te drew Beijing's ire, with the PLA holding new war games intended to serve as a "stern warning to the collusion of 'Taiwan independence separatists' with foreign elements".

- 'Strong punishment' -

Taiwan's defense ministry began regularly detecting Chinese balloons drifting around Taiwan last December, ahead of the island's presidential elections in January.

Taipei initially described the objects as weather balloons but later blasted them as threats to aviation safety.

A record eight Chinese balloons were detected over a 24-hour period in February, with five flying directly over Taiwan.

Tsai's right-hand man Lai was elected president in January in a contest overshadowed by fears of military threats from Beijing.

Following his inauguration in May, Beijing announced two days of drills as a "strong punishment for the separatist acts of 'Taiwan independence' forces".

And in July, Taipei said Beijing had sent 66 Chinese military aircraft in a 24-hour window -- the record so far this year.

And this time it is a National Day speech by Lai in which he vowed to "resist annexation" that has sparked Beijing's ire, which has sent fighter jets and warships around the island in a fresh show of force.

Beijing on Monday said the drills were "a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding state sovereignty and national unity".