Taiwan's defense ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was using "cheap verbal intimidation and saber rattling" to threaten Taiwan, as China's military began live-fire drills in the sensitive Taiwan Strait amid growing tension.
The exercises are taking place off the southeastern Chinese city of Quanzhou, in between two groups of islands close to China's coast but that Taiwan has controlled since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war.
Chinese state media has said the drills are a direct response to "provocations" by Taiwanese leaders related to what China fears are moves to push for the island's formal independence.