Chinese state media claimed on Sunday that several nuclear-capable H-6K bombers flew into “the waters and airspace around Taiwan” at an unspecified time to “carry out simulated confrontation drills.”
The provocative allegation was made just days before President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in South Korea.
According to the report posted on the Weibo social media account for Chinese state television, the bombers were accompanied by “several J-10 fighters” flying in “combat formation.”
The post was accompanied with poor-quality video of practice bombs being dropped from the H-6K aircraft, supposedly with the coast of Taiwan visible to the naked eye in the background, although the validity of the footage could not be determined by independent analysts.
The Xian H-6 bomber is China’s version of the Russian Tupolev Tu-16 twin-engine jet bomber. The original design dates back to the 1950s, but both the Chinese and Russian platforms have been updated many times over the years.
The H-6K is effectively China’s answer to heavy, long-range American bombers like the B-47 and B-52. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) of China decided that upgrading the venerable design with better electronics and firepower was more cost-efficient than redesigning from scratch. Western analysts believe development on the H-6K platform began about 25 years ago, with the first production models entering service around 2008.
The current iteration of the H-6K bomber can carry about 12 tons of weapons, including cruise missiles comparable to early versions of the U.S. Tomahawk missile, and potentially missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. H-6Ks launched from China have sufficient range to threaten Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense (MND) denounced China’s state media reports as “propaganda” and “a public-opinion operation aimed at intimidation.”
“We call on our citizens to remain united in the face of such cognitive operations, to uphold freedom and democracy, and to defend our homeland together,” the ministry said.
MND’s daily bulletin of Chinese activity around the island showed no formations of heavy bombers or fighter escorts, only three fighters passing through the Taiwan Strait and one support aircraft southwest of Taiwan. According to MND, no drill involving bomb drops was conducted anywhere near Taiwan.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Busan, South Korea on Thursday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that two days of talks with Chinese trade negotiators have gone well, preparing a “framework” for the Trump-Xi meeting.
Bessent was confident that Trump and Xi would strike a deal to avert the 100-percent tariff rate Trump has threatened to impose on China in November.
“I’m also anticipating that we will get some kind of a deferral on the rare earth export controls that the Chinese had discussed,” Bessent added, referring to restrictions China announced this month.
“President Trump gave me a great deal of negotiating leverage with the threat of the 100% tariffs, and I believe we’ve reached a very substantial framework that will avoid that and allow us to discuss many other things with the Chinese,” Bessent said.
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