China launched military drills around Taiwan on Saturday as a "serious warning" to separatist forces in an angry but widely expected response to Vice President William Lai's visit to the United States, drawing condemnation from Taipei. Lai, the front-runner to become Taiwan's president in elections in January, returned from the United States on Friday. He officially made only stopovers on his way to and from Paraguay but gave speeches while in the U.S. China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the strong objections of the island's government. The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command, which has responsibility for the area around Taiwan, said in a brief statement it was carrying out joint naval and air combat readiness patrols around the island. Taiwan's defence ministry said it had detected 42 Chinese aircraft and eight ships involved in drills around the island from Saturday morning and that it had deployed ships and aircraft in response. Twenty-six Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the 100-km (60-mile) wide Taiwan Strait, or areas beyond each end of the line, the ministry said in a statement. For decades, the line served as an unofficial barrier between the two militaries. The PLA's Eastern Theatre Command said it was holding joint exercises and training of naval and air forces, focussing on ship-aircraft coordination and seizing control, to test the forces' "actual combat capabilities". "This is a serious warning against Taiwan independence separatist forces colluding with external forces to provoke," it said.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse