China has launched live-fire drills across five sea areas at once, a show of force that unsettles Taiwan and the wider region but is so far judged to be routine coastal training.

• Chinese forces began live-fire and equipment drills in the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas, running through the 17th.
• Taiwan's defense minister Wellington Koo said the activity looks like artillery training along China's own coast, but the military is watching closely and assuming the worst.
• Koo condemned the drills as deliberate pressure on the Indo-Pacific, while saying Taiwan has a full picture of what is happening.
• The U.S. has put anti-ship missiles on Yonaguni island, close to Taiwan — Taipei declined to comment but said it will keep building up its own defenses.
• A proposal by Taipei's mayor to move Songshan airport is running into resistance, since the airport doubles as a military backup landing site.

Outlook: The drills should wind down by the 17th, but Taiwan is treating this pattern of sudden multi-sea exercises as the new normal and keeping its forces on alert.