TAIPEI
\nTaiwan\u2019s army held another live-fire drill Thursday after Beijing ended its largest-ever military exercises around the island and repeated threats to bring the self-ruled democracy under its control.
\nBeijing has raged at a trip to Taiwan last week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u2014 the highest-ranking elected American official to visit in decades \u2014 staging days of air and sea drills that raised tensions to their highest level in years.
\nTaiwan has accused China of using the Pelosi visit as an excuse to kickstart drills that would allow it to rehearse for an invasion.
\nLou Woei-jye, spokesman for Taiwan\u2019s Eighth Army Corps, told AFP its forces fired howitzers and target flares as part of the defensive drill on Thursday.
\nThe exercise in Taiwan\u2019s southernmost county Pingtung began at 08:30 am (0030 GMT) and lasted about an hour, he said.
\nArtillery tucked in from the coast was lined up side by side, with armed soldiers in units firing the howitzers out to sea one after the other, a live stream showed.
\nTaiwan held a similar drill on Tuesday in Pingtung. Both involved hundreds of troops, the military said.
\nThe military has played down the exercises\u2019 significance, saying they were already scheduled and were not in response to China\u2019s war games.
\n\u201cWe have two goals for the drills, the first is to certify the proper condition of the artillery and their maintenance condition and the second is to confirm the results of last year,\u201d Lou said, referring to annual drills.
\nTaiwan routinely stages military drills simulating defence against a Chinese invasion.
\n\u2018Prepare for war\u2019
\nThe latest exercise came after China\u2019s military indicated its own drills had come to an end Wednesday, saying its forces \u201csuccessfully completed various tasks\u201d in the Taiwan Strait while vowing to continue patrolling its waters.
\nBut in the same announcement, China said that it would \u201ccontinue to carry out military training and prepare for war\u201d.
\nIn a white paper published the same day, China\u2019s Taiwan Affairs Office said Beijing would \u201cnot renounce the use of force\u201d against its neighbour and reserved \u201cthe option of taking all necessary measures\u201d.
\n\u201cWe are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form,\u201d it said in the paper.
\nChina last issued a white paper on Taiwan in 2000.
\nTaiwan\u2019s Mainland Affairs Council, the island\u2019s top policymaking body on China, rejected the paper and said the document was \u201cfull of lies that are \u2018wishful thinking and disregarding the facts\u2019\u201d.
\nTaiwan\u2019s foreign ministry on Thursday joined the council in rebuffing the \u201cone country, two systems\u201d model that Beijing has proposed for the island.
\n\u201cChina\u2019s whole statement absolutely goes against the cross-strait status quo and its reality,\u201d ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou told a press conference.
\n\u201cChina is using US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s visit as an excuse to destroy the status quo and taking the opportunity to make trouble, attempting to create a new normal to intimidate the Taiwanese people.\u201d
\nThe Chinese Communist Party\u2019s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement Thursday that Taipei\u2019s \u201crebellious actions are just a slap in the face and cannot stop the historical trend of reunification\u201d with mainland China.
\nPelosi has stood by her visit, saying Wednesday she was \u201cvery proud\u201d of her delegation and believed China had used her visit as a \u201cpretext\u201d to launch its military exercises.
\n\u201cWe will not allow China to isolate Taiwan,\u201d Pelosi told reporters in Washington.
\nIn response to the Chinese military revealing it was bringing drills to an end, Taiwan\u2019s army said it would \u201cadjust how we deploy our forces… without letting our guard down\u201d.
\nSince the late 1990s, the island has transformed from an autocracy into a democracy, and a more distinct Taiwanese identity has solidified.
\nRelations between the two sides have significantly worsened since Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan\u2019s president in 2016.
\nTsai and her Democratic Progressive Party do not consider Taiwan a part of China.
\nTheir platform falls under China\u2019s broad definition of Taiwanese separatism, which includes those who advocate for the island to have an identity separate from the mainland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TAIPEI Taiwan\u2019s army held another live-fire drill Thursday after Beijing ended its largest-ever military exercises around the island and repeated threats to bring the self-ruled democracy under its control. Beijing has raged at a trip to Taiwan last week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u2014 the highest-ranking elected American official to visit in decades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-277048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n