Two French-made Mirage 2000-5 fighters from the northern airbase of Hsinchu landed on a highway in Tainan, southern Taiwan, where they were refuelled and loaded with short-range air-to-air missiles before taking to the skies again.

"I'm confident even under a poor situation, I'm able to do as well," Lieutenant Colonel Chang Wei-kuang told reporters after his twin-seat jet safely landed back at the Hsinchu base.

The air force said the exercise, part of Taiwan's biggest annual military drill, is to "review the air force's capability in using freeways for emergency landings and logistic support in case of war."

Analysts said said the rare drill was prompted by US concerns over growing hostility across the Taiwan Strait as China steps up rhetoric against Taiwanese independence and stages huge military manoeuvres of its own.

Since pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian was re-elected in March, Beijing has stressed its long-standing vow to take Taiwan by force should the island try to formalise its split from China at the end of civil war in 1949.

Local television said officials from the US mission in Taipei, known as the American Institute in Taiwan, witnessed the landings, designed to simulate a scenario in which the country's major airstrips would be destroyed by attack.

The United States has remained the leading arms supplier to Taiwan despite switching of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

In its commentary on July 5, the China Daily newspaper lambasted a "de-facto military alliance" between the United States and Taiwan which it said encouraged reckless moves towards independence by the island's leaders.

The Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported that China has said it would use its sea, land and air drills to demonstrate its ability to dominate air space over Taiwan, an essential element in any invasion.

Wednesday's air force exercise came as China's People's Liberation Army was conducting massive wargames on Dongshan Island, in southeastern China's Fujian province, just 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan's Penghu Island.

Previous state media reports have said that practically all the advanced weaponry China possesses would be used in that exercise, including Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets purchased from Russia.

Nuclear-powered submarines, warships, the latest model missile destroyers and a guided missile brigade would also reportedly be involved.

Taiwan last held a freeway landing drill in 1978, when its aircraft practiced emergency landings prior to the highway's inauguration.

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