China launched a new drill near Taiwan soon after warning the United States against arming the island state and undermining the peace in the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, Washington sent a confusing signal by removing Taiwan’s name from an online post announcing the Cobra Gold military drills.
Chinese military conducted “shooting training” off the southwest coast of Taiwan on February 26 without a prior announcement or notification.
Taiwan lamented the drills as provocative and dangerous. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said: ”During this period, it even blatantly violated international practice by setting up a drills area in waters about 40 nautical miles (74 km) off the coast … without prior warning, claiming that it would carry out ‘shooting training.’”
The drills purportedly took place near the state’s southwestern cities, including Kaohsiung and Pingtung, which host some important naval and air bases of the Republic of China (the official name of Taiwan). Additionally, Kaohsiung is home to Taiwan’s biggest port, a bustling international shipping hub.
According to the MND, China’s only notice was a temporary radio broadcast warning that it would conduct these drills. The Taiwanese government censured China for deliberately creating a situation that could threaten ship and flight safety in the contested strait.
The Taiwanese MND has since deployed air, sea, and land-based forces to monitor the situation as it unfolds.
Interestingly, as China began the drills, a senior Chinese leader pledged unwavering efforts to bring the self-ruled Taiwanese island under Chinese control.
China’s Taiwan relations chief, Wang Huning, called on his country to “shape the inevitable reunification of the motherland” during a meeting on the self-governing democracy in Beijing on February 26.
China refuses to recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty and maintains that the island, with its 24 million inhabitants, is a renegade Chinese province that must return to the Chinese island. In fact, the Chinese leadership has not ruled out the use of force to occupy the island state.
Notably, these drills follow Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian’s remarks urging the U.S. to stop arming Taiwan. The remarks reportedly came after reports suggested that the U.S. had removed a freeze on military aid to Taiwan and the Philippines. Of the $5.3 billion exempted by Donald Trump, about $870 million were designated for security programs in Taiwan.
Lin said that China was extremely concerned by these reports, adding that China has always firmly opposed the United States military aid to China’s Taiwan region because it violates the three China-US joint communiqués and the one-China principle. China regularly opposes U.S. arms sales and military aid to Taiwan and has accused the U.S. of turning it into a powder-keg nation.
Though the exact reason for these drills is not known at this point, they come days after Adm Samuel Paparo, the Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), warned that China’s escalating military demonstrations of force toward Taiwan are “not exercises; they are rehearsals” for an impending invasion of the island.
Meanwhile, the United States sent a rather confusing signal by adding and then deleting Taiwan’s name in a recent multi-national military exercise conducted in Thailand.
US Online Post Triggers Frenzy
On February 25, the U.S. military published a social media post announcing the Cobra Gold Exercise and the names of the participating countries. However, about three hours later, Taiwan’s name was inexplicably taken off the list, local Taiwanese media reported.
According to the report, the U.S. published the post on the Exercise Cobra Gold Facebook page at 6:17 p.m. with the words: “Better Together! More than 200 service members from the U.S., Thailand, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan gathered on the parade ground at Camp Suranaree, Thailand, on Feb. 25, to usher in the start of Cobra Gold 2025.”
However, by 9:15 pm the same day, Taiwan’s name was omitted from the post. The U.S. has not acknowledged any such editing of its previous post despite being approached by local Taiwanese media outlets.
Notably, the post may have indirectly referenced China, as it read: “We share a goal in this region: to prevent war by remaining ready together.” General Ronald P. Clark, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific, said, “Preventing war requires many thanks, so thank you to Thailand for putting in the effort this year for the 44th annual Cobra Gold Exercise.”
It is not clear whether the U.S. decided to remove Taiwan’s name to avoid provoking China.
A previous U.S. Embassy press release said that “Cobra Gold is the largest joint and combined exercise in the Indo-Pacific region, and a concrete example of the strong alliance and strategic relationship between Thailand and the United States, as well as an example of the strong cooperative relationship with the other participating Allies and partners.”
Nearly thirty nations are participating in the 2025 iteration of the Cobra Gold exercises. These drills focus on reflecting on the changing character of modern warfare and involve command and control exercises, humanitarian assistance, field drills, cyber defense, space operations, and counter-drone techniques, among other things.
The deletion of Taiwan’s name from the post has created confusion among Taiwanese people. It comes at a time when the Trump administration has shown signs of being more committed to Taiwanese independence than previously anticipated. For instance, the U.S. State Department recently removed a statement from its website that emphasized that the country did not support Taiwan’s independence.
The U.S. post emphasized that Cobra Gold demonstrates the U.S. commitment to the region by building interoperability, multilateral cooperative arrangements, and advancing common interests through Washington’s commitment to its allies and partners in ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.
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