China conducted large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan on Monday, in response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's national day speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan.

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.

Taiwan has condemned the latest round of Chinese military drills around the island as an “unreasonable provocation” after Beijing deployed warships and fighter jets as a “stern warning” to “separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces.

China’s armed forces held more drills around Taiwan that it said were intended as a warning to the democratically run government to halt “separatist acts.”