Ankur Desai

You can hear the announcement of the drill's codename Justice Mission 2025.

Shiyi from the Chinese People's Liberation Army said they were sending a stern warning to separatist forces.

Put simply, China says it owns the island.

The Taiwanese government disagrees.

The war games have come after the largest ever US arms sales to Taiwan.

In a press conference, Taiwan's defence ministry described the war games as unacceptable, saying it had detected 89 Chinese military aircraft and 28 vessels near the island.

I spoke to our China correspondent Stephen McDonald for more details.

So what we have are these huge war games going on.

And in the same way that they have in years gone by, it's all around Taiwan.

So we've got these five zones.

We know there's five zones because maps have been released.

And what they're doing is practicing blockading Taiwan.

So I guess it's a practice of a precursor to an attack.

But then also, at some point, it would enable an invasion of Taiwan.

So this is also practicing for that attack.

Now, Taiwan has already been tense.

This comes two weeks after the US had its biggest ever arms sale to Taiwan.

And before that, the Japanese prime minister said that she couldn't rule out Japanese involvement.

if the People's Liberation Army tried to take Taiwan by force.

Now, this was an answer to a hypothetical question, but nevertheless, it upset Beijing.