"The UK's longstanding position is that this issue needs to be settled peacefully by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, through constructive dialogue and not through military activity or action and our position has not changed on that," the ...

China launched military exercises around Taiwan as part of what it called a 'stern warning' against 'separatist acts by Taiwan independent forces.'

Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedo

The Chinese military said the exercises, which will simulate strikes on land and at sea, would serve as “a stern warning” to “Taiwan independence forces.”

China was holding large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday. China’s Defense Ministry said the drills were a response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s refusal to concede to Beijing’s demands that Taiwan acknowledge itself as a part of the People’s Republic of China under the rule of the Communist Party.

The Pentagon on Monday strongly criticized Chinese military war games around Taiwan, calling them destabilizing. "This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing,