China launched on Thursday what it called "Joint Sword-2024A" exercises, surrounding Taiwan with warplanes and navy ships and vowing "stern punishment" of separatist forces on the island.

And as state broadcaster CCTV aired an online livestream that lasted more than six hours featuring martial tunes and a video of young soldiers rushing to their stations on a loop, talking heads lined up to hail the drills as a righteous response to Taiwan's new leadership sworn in three days ago.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, using language more typical of nationalist tabloids, warned that those seeking Taiwan's independence would be left with "heads broken and blood flowing".

China's military released a series of graphics showing off the equipment involved in the mission, from jets to ballistic missiles and artillery, boasting of their "cross-strait lethality" and emblazoning them with bloodstained text proclaiming that a "rain of arrows eliminates independence".

In one, a hail of rockets stream towards a small island, while in another a jet targets a wooded area.

The United States switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979 but remains the island's most important ally and supplier of military hardware.

The military warned on Thursday that "relying on foreigners is a harmful path" and that independence for Taiwan was a "dead end".

State media also lined up a series of commentators to tout the military's rehearsal of a full-scale blockade of the island to cut it off from its allies and energy imports.

Tong Zhen, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, told the nationalist Global Times newspaper the exercises showcased the military's "ability to conduct an all-round attack on the entire island".

That would be done, he said, "without any blind spots" and would allow the military to "form an intimidating situation from the east to the west" of the island.

- 'Stuffed into a birdcage' -

Zhang Chi, a professor at Beijing's China National Defense University, told CCTV the drills aimed to "strangle" Taiwan's critical Kaohsiung port to "severely impact" its foreign trade.

They would cut off "Taiwan's lifeline of energy imports" as well as "block the support lines that some US allies provide to 'Taiwan independence' forces", he said.

Others gloated that Taiwan's new President Lai Ching-te was getting his comeuppance for an inauguration speech in which he vowed to defend Taiwan's democracy from Beijing's threats.

Lai had been "directly seized by the mainland's military might and stuffed into a birdcage", former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin posted on social media platform Weibo to his millions of followers.

Nationalists seethed online over Lai's speech and warned Taiwan against efforts at independence, some using obscenities to make their point that the "one-China principle is unquestionable".

"The unification of the motherland is unstoppable," a Weibo user said of the military's announcement of the drills.