The People's Liberation Army of China has held live-fire drills along the country's south-eastern coastline. The exercises took place from eight on Wednesday morning local time until midnight. Ma Ke has the story.  

Live ammunition, tough combat scenarios and coordination between land and sea, Wednesday's drills have set the stage to test the combat capabilities of PLA's Army Aviation, which plays an important role in safeguarding China's coastal areas.

YANG BAOWEI, BRIGADE COMMANDER PLA ARMY AVIATION "The drills are conducted in different combat scenarios, including night-time, maritime, and complicated electromagnetic environments. For combat modes, we're focusing on long-distance, coordinated strikes on maritime targets with multiple kinds of ammunition. Our target is to improve the army in a full-scale, all-around way, in areas such as capability independent detection, and on-the-spot decisions."

This is China's second military drill this month. Unlike the first in the South China Sea, these drills focused on a specific area of water--the Taiwan Straits. They are seen as a response to comments by Taiwan politician Lai Ching-te in support of independence, and some recent secessionist activities on the island.

LIU JIEYI, DIRECTOR TAIWAN AFFAIRS OFFICE "Lai Ching-te is advocating Taiwan independence. We want to say that there is no way such claims will happen. We held this military exercise to safeguard our motherland's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Lai was recently appointed as the head of Taiwan's executive branch by the island's leader Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai also made a high-profile gesture lately by inspecting a Taiwanese military vessel. Experts believe these are desperate moves in Tsai's internal power struggle.

Tsai has been posing as a hard-line leader, by alienating her administration from the Chinese mainland and chasing US favor, which Washington gladly granted. But now many in Taiwan are worried the island will become a mere stepping-stone for Trump to implement his ambitious Asia-Pacific strategy. MA Ke, CGTN.