Here's what you need to know.
- Why has China launched these drills? -
Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949, when nationalists fled to the island following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a civil war on the mainland.
Beijing considers the democratic island part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control.
Taiwan's new president, Lai Ching-te, has been branded a "dangerous separatist" by Beijing.
"Beijing worries that Lai pushing de facto independence is moving dangerously close... to encouraging the international community to support formal independence," Rorry Daniels, managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, told AFP.
In his inauguration speech on Monday, Lai vowed to defend Taiwanese democracy and said the two sides "are not subordinate to each other".
China called the speech "a confession of independence" and warned of "countermeasures".
On Thursday, it said the war games were meant as a "strong punishment for... attempts at independence".
However, J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based security analyst, said planning for such exercises must have begun before the speech.
"Beijing decided long ago that, whatever Lai said, they'd be unhappy with it and would be 'compelled' to react," he told AFP.
China has launched similar military drills before, most notably in August 2022 after then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.
- What is China trying to achieve? -
The drills are first and foremost a message to Taiwan and its allies, analysts said.
"It's meant to be a warning to both the Lai administration and Washington that it can and will continue to put the squeeze on Taiwan if Lai does not return to a more moderate tone and approach," said Amanda Hsiao of the International Crisis Group.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) intends to prove "that if the need arises it has the ability to quickly impose a blockade on the entire territory of Taiwan island, stop armed intervention by external forces, and rapidly resolve the Taiwan issue", Song Zhongping, an analyst and former Chinese military officer, told AFP.
The drills are also aimed at a domestic audience.
They are "a tried and tested way" for the CCP to "assuage popular nationalist concerns regarding the regime's ability to defend Chinese national sovereignty", said James Char, an expert on China's military at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
- Do these drills differ from previous ones? -
The war games are scheduled to last two days, compared to at least five in August 2022.
But their geographical scope appears to be broader than previous exercises.
"(The drills) are very close in, violating Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ), and moving ever closer," said Evan Feigenbaum of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
That "is eventually going to force some decisions from Taiwan about rules of engagement".
Beijing now deploys military aircraft and naval vessels around the island on a near-daily basis.
Ben Lewis of the analysis website PLATracker told AFP that the focus on Taiwan's outlying islands stood out to him.
The inclusion of China's coast guard in Thursday's exercises was also interesting, Lewis and other analysts said.
It "suggests an interest in signaling interdiction and quarantine", Feigenbaum said.
Overall though, Lewis said he thought the drills would be smaller than in August 2022.
- What happens next? -
Beijing could choose to extend the war games, or launch missiles near Taiwan, as it did after Pelosi's visit.
It could also escalate with actions such as imposing a real blockade around the island.
But NTU's Char said he thought it was unlikely China would do any of the above "based on the desire demonstrated recently... to lower tensions" by both Washington and Beijing.
Relations had been tentatively thawing after a November meeting between the two countries' leaders in San Francisco.
Feigenbaum said the exercises were "not a sign of imminent war".
"Beijing has a whole-of-regime strategy that includes a wide array of coercive and persuasive tools... In the near term, invasion is the least likely of these tools to be deployed," he told AFP.
Much of Beijing's toolkit was aimed at "inducing Taiwan to lose the will to resist", he said, rather than risking a high-cost invasion and occupation.
Beijing's military intimidation of Taiwan would certainly continue, analysts said.
Many pointed out that the suffix 'A' in the operation's name -- "Joint Sword-2024A" -- suggested more drills might already be planned this year.
China's shows of force against Taiwan
Beijing (AFP) May 23, 2024 -
China launched military drills around self-ruled Taiwan on Thursday, three days after the democratic island's new President Lai Ching-te was sworn in.
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 Taiwan "already independent".
Taipei said in April 2023 it had detected the long-range TB-001 Chinese combat drone and 37 other Chinese aircraft circling around 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 military aircraft and naval vessels around Taiwan on a near-daily basis, with Taipei authorities detecting as many as 45 Chinese warplanes around the island over a 24-hour period this month.
- Pelosi backlash -
Beijing unleashed its largest military exercises around Taiwan in August 2022, after then-US 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, and 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 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".
- Balloons -
Taiwan's defence 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 and "an attempt to use cognitive warfare to affect the morale of our people".
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.
China appeared to refrain from obvious retaliation in the immediate aftermath of the election, although regular air incursions continued.
However, Beijing resumed its sabre-rattling on Thursday, with the PLA announcing two days of drills as a "strong punishment for the separatist acts of 'Taiwan independence' forces".
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