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“Always on high alert, the troops of the Theater Command will keep strengthening combat readiness with arduous training, resolutely thwart the attempts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatists and external intervention, and firmly safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity,� Senior Capt. Li Xi, spokesperson for the PLA's Eastern Theater Command, was quoted as saying.

The brief announcement, presented on video accompanied by rousing martial music, offered no details about what constituted success, nor did it specify exactly when the exercises concluded. An earlier announcement had said they would take place during the day Monday and Tuesday, but it was unclear if any lingering drills had continued into Wednesday around Taiwan.

Sensitivities around Taiwan abound

Taiwan has long been China's most sensitive issue when it comes to the international community.

Beijing has long insisted the island is its sovereign territory and has promised to retake it by force if necessary. split from the mainland in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek's ºÃÉ«tvists retreated there upon losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists. That communist government has ruled the rest of China ever since.

toward the island on a near-daily basis, and in recent years it has stepped up of the exercises.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also weighed in Wednesday, albeit obliquely, making a brief reference to the Taiwan situation in an annual New Year’s Eve speech to the nation. He said Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share “a bond of blood and kinship.�

“The reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable,� Xi said.

This week's military maneuvers were received in many corners as inflammatory, and China itself acknowledged they were designed to send a message to “external forces� — in short, anyone who might come between its government and the island it prizes.

Drills have been received critically

It has some targets in mind in that respect. In November, the prime minister of Japan — a nation that has a bumpy history with China after brutally colonizing parts of it in the early 20th century — if Taiwan faced direct attack by the PLA.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that China’s military exercises around Taiwan is “an act that escalates tension in the Taiwan Strait� and that it has conveyed the concern to Beijing.

“Japan expects the issues surrounding Taiwan to be resolved peacefully through dialogue, which is a position that the Japanese government has consistently maintained all along,� it said in a statement. “The peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are important for the entire international community. Japan continues to watch the related development with strong interest.�

And in mid-December, the United States that, if approved by Congress, would represent the largest such aid to the island ever — a move criticized sharply by China.

In the Philippines, which has intermittent disputes with China over other territory in the South China Sea, Defense Minister Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. said he was “deeply concerned by China's military and coast guard actions around Taiwan,� saying they undermine stability “in an already fragile geopolitical environment.�

“This heightened scale of coercion has implications that extend beyond cross-Strait relations and into the broader Indo-Pacific community,� Teodoro said. “Basic principles of self-restraint must be observed.�

Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not concerned because he has a good relationship with Xi and China has been "doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area.�

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Associated Press journalists Jim Gomez in Manila, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Simina Mistreanu in Beijing contributed.