China has completed two days of military exercises around Taiwan, with the Ministry of Defense in Taipei today giving details of the number of Chinese warplanes and ships that participated in them.

The military channel on Chinese state television broadcast late yesterday that the military high schools have been completed. The official newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army reported that lasted two daysfrom Thursday to Friday, as already announced.

China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, held the “Joint Sword-2024A” drills three days after the inauguration of new president Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing describes as an “autonomist”. Beijing said the drills were “punishment” for Lai’s inauguration speech on Monday, in which he said the two sides in the Taiwan Strait were not inferior to each other, which China saw as a statement that the two different countries. China considers Taiwan its province, pending reunification with the mainland after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, in which Mao Zedong’s Communists prevailed over the Nationalists.

Lai has repeatedly offered to hold talks with China but his move has been rebuffed. It states that only the people of Taiwan can decide their future and rejects Beijing’s claims to sovereignty.

Yesterday, 46 Chinese military aircraft crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, the unofficial border between the two sides, as announced today by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense. According to the announcement, a total of 62 Chinese warplanes and 27 warships were spotted. The planes flew into the Strait as well as the Bassi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, according to the ministry.

China’s previous large-scale drills around Taiwan were held in August 2023 as a “stern warning” from Beijing over a visit by Lai, then vice president, to the US. Before that, Beijing had moved to high schools of historic size in August 2022, reacting to a visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the US House of Representatives.