{"id":7131,"date":"2026-01-01T03:27:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=7131"},"modified":"2026-01-01T03:27:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:27:47","slug":"were-not-scared-life-in-taiwan-goes-on-amid-major-chinese-war-games-military-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=7131","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re not scared\u2019: Life in Taiwan goes on amid major Chinese war games | Military News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As China carried out live-fire drills and rehearsed a military blockade in the waters surrounding Taiwan this week, 70-year-old Liao said she wasn\u2019t worried about war. She was enjoying life as a retiree, playing mahjong with her friends and keeping an eye on the stock market.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryday life hasn\u2019t been impacted,\u201d Liao told Al Jazeera as she was having her hair shampooed and cut in time for the new year at a salon in New Taipei City. \u201cI\u2019ve lived in Taiwan for 70 years. I\u2019m used to it. We all still have to wash our hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not scared,\u201d Liao\u2019s hairstylist agreed. In fact, she hadn\u2019t even noticed that the drills were happening. \u201cWorking people don\u2019t have time to pay attention to these things. All they can do is work,\u201d Liao said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the Taiwanese don\u2019t care about threats from China. While life, for the most part, remained undisturbed this week during what China called \u201cJustice Mission 2025\u201d, information about them circulated rapidly on social media and was broadcast across Taiwan\u2019s 24-hour news channels.<\/p>\n

Disinformation \u2013 a regular component of such exercises \u2013 also circulated widely, including a propaganda video showing an aircraft flying close to the Taipei 101 skyscraper that Taiwan\u2019s government dismissed<\/a> as fake.<\/p>\n

Threats from China, though, have become a regular part of life for the Taiwanese people. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, since the communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and established the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC). China says it will unify Taiwan with the PRC by force if necessary and has become increasingly assertive in its behaviour around Taiwan as its confidence in its military capabilities and prowess grows.<\/p>\n

State news outlet The China Daily said in an editorial on Monday that the drills were \u201cpart of a series of Beijing\u2019s responses\u201d to an $11bn arms package from the United States to Taiwan, \u201cas well as a warning to [Taiwanese President William] Lai Ching-te authorities in Taiwan\u201d.<\/p>\n

Washington does not officially recognise Taiwan, whose formal name is the Republic of China, but it has pledged to help Taipei defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Six Assurances.<\/p>\n

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian also told reporters on Monday that the exercises were \u201ca punitive and deterrent action against separatist forces who seek Taiwan independence through military build-up and a necessary move to safeguard China\u2019s national sovereignty and territorial integrity\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Liao is confident that China won\u2019t launch an attack thanks to the strength of Taiwan\u2019s economy and the \u201csacred mountain\u201d \u2013 a local term for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), or what foreigners might refer to as the \u201csilicon shield\u201d \u2013 which many believe will protect Taiwan from invasion. China relies on advanced semiconductors from TSMC for its own high-tech industries. \u201cLook, the stock market is up 200 points today. If fighting were to break out today, everyone would be selling off their stocks, right?\u201d Liao said.<\/p>\n

\"Taiwan\"
The hair salon where Liao, 70, had her hair washed and cut this week, despite Chinese military drills going on close by [Jordyn Haime\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018We feel a bit numb\u2019<\/h2>\n

For many interviewees, this week\u2019s exercises brought reminders of Chinese drills in 2022, which were carried out after then-United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the highest-ranking American official to do so in decades.<\/p>\n

Those exercises included live-fire drills, naval deployments, air sorties and ballistic missile launches and went on for four days in August that year.<\/p>\n

They ushered in an era in which violations of Taiwan\u2019s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) reached unprecedented levels. In November 2021, there were only 41 documented violations. By November this year, that number had soared to 266, according to data from Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of National Defence. And since the Pelosi visit in 2022, China has launched six large-scale military drills around Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Polling from the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, DC, suggested that this increased activity has taken a toll on the Taiwanese people. In 2023, it found that just under 65 percent of people were worried about a cross-strait war, a moderate increase from just over 57 percent in 2021. Nearly 58 percent of respondents said they believed Chinese President Xi Jinping was more likely to use force against Taiwan compared with 46 percent five years ago in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve become used to it, I think, a bit numb,\u201d said Ms Yeh, who runs a flower shop in New Taipei City. During the two days of Chinese war games this week, customers drifted in and out as usual. No one discussed the drills occurring just offshore.<\/p>\n

But she added that the atmosphere felt different this time\u00a0and the drills seemed more serious, even if people weren\u2019t showing it on their faces. \u201cI think Taiwanese people are resigned to their fate,\u201d she said. \u201cFor ordinary citizens, there\u2019s nothing we can do. Taiwan\u2019s democracy has voting rights, but besides voting, what else can we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeh said escalating cross-strait tensions and the warmth that Taiwan\u2019s main opposition party, the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), shows towards China have eroded her trust in the KMT to protect Taiwan.<\/p>\n

In 2016, she voted for Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic Progressive Party\u2019s (DPP\u2019s) candidate for president, and again for current DPP President Lai in 2024 after being a lifelong KMT voter.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Communist Party has refused to engage with the DPP, which champions Taiwan\u2019s unique identity and sovereignty, while the Kuomintang has repeatedly blocked the DPP\u2019s proposed special defence budget. The KMT\u2019s new chairperson, Cheng Li-wun, has accused Lai of pushing Taiwan towards the brink of war and has prioritised a meeting with Xi in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u2018I can only watch\u2019<\/h2>\n

Wang, a 19-year-old university student, expressed similar feelings to Yeh. \u201cI\u2019m a little worried, even to the point of wanting to write a will,\u201d she said as she studied with a friend at a cafe on Wednesday. \u201cThis time feels more serious. It feels more realistic, but I feel powerless because I can only watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The atmosphere in Taiwan had already been feeling tense, Wang said. On December 19, a 27-year-old named Chang Wen set off smoke grenades and stabbed several people in the centre of Taipei, killing three people and injuring 11. Such violence is rarely seen in the city. Chang, who died during a police chase, acted alone, and the motive for his attack is not known.<\/p>\n

Then on Saturday, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake off the northeastern coast of Yilan shook the island, although it caused no major damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many troops stationed in Zhongshan [station] and Taipei [Main Station], and the recent earthquakes have made us even more nervous. I think it\u2019s necessary that we should be vigilant, but I think the panic online is excessive,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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As China carried out live-fire drills and rehearsed a military blockade in the waters surrounding Taiwan this week, 70-year-old Liao said she wasn\u2019t worried about war. She was enjoying life as a retiree, playing mahjong with her friends and keeping an eye on the stock market. \u201cEveryday life hasn\u2019t been impacted,\u201d Liao told Al Jazeera […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}