BEIJING, August 4. /TASS/. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has launched large-scale military drills with live fire exercise in six areas around Taiwan, China’s Central Television reported on Thursday.

According to the TV channel, drills kicked off at 12:00 local time (07:00 am Moscow time). The drills will continue till August 7.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported earlier that three out of the six areas of China’s drills overlap with the waters Taiwan’s administration considers as territorial waters.

China’s Global Times said on Wednesday that the drills will involve J-20 and J-11 fighter jets, H-6K strategic bombers, 052D project torpedo boat destroyers, 056A project corvettes. Apart from that, the Chinese army will use DF-11 shorter-range ballistic missiles and DF-17 hypersonic systems. It is planned to fire conventional rockets directly over Taiwan to hit hypothetical targets east of its coastline.

According to experts, five of the six drills areas are located east of the so-called median line in the Taiwan Strait, which is considered as a hypothetical border between mainland China and the island.

The drills were announced shortly after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei.