China says it has 'successfully completed' military drills around Taiwan

China says it has "successfully completed" three days of military drills around Taiwan, amid boiling tensions between Beijing and Washington over the self-ruled island.

The People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Eastern Command said in a statement on Monday it had "successfully completed" tasks related to its "Joint Sword" drills.

The exercise "comprehensively tested the integrated joint combat ability of multiple military branches under actual combat conditions", the statement read.

One of China's two aircraft carriers — the Shandong — also "participated in today's exercise", the Chinese military said.

Local maritime authorities said on Saturday that the exercises were to include live-fire drills off the rocky coast of China's Fujian province, 190 kilometers from Taipei. The exercises would be held around Pingtan, a south-eastern island that is China's nearest point to Taiwan.

A video published on Monday to the Chinese Eastern Theatre Command's official WeChat account showed a pilot saying he had "arrived near the northern part of Taiwan Island", with missiles "locked into place". Another footage showed an officer's piercing whistle sends military personnel running into position as a simulated barrage on Taiwan unfolds on screen.

Beijing held the exercises in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week, an encounter it had warned would provoke a strong response. Tsai met McCarthy outside Los Angeles on her way home from a foreign visit.

But China had repeatedly warned against any meeting, and began the latest drills soon after Tsai returned to Taiwan.

"These operations serve as a stern warning against the collusion between separatist forces seeking 'Taiwan independence' and external forces and against their provocative activities," Shi Yin, a PLA spokesman, said about "Joint Sword".

US warship sails in S. China Sea as Chinese drills near Taiwan enter third day

The US Navy says one of its warships carried out what it called "a navigational rights and freedoms mission" in the South China Sea at the same time as Chinese military drills around Taiwan entered their third day.

In August last year, China deployed warships, missiles and fighter jets around Taiwan in its largest show of force in years following a trip to the island by McCarthy's predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.

Meanwhile, the US Navy said in a statement on Monday that it sent the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer through South China Sea. It said the vessel had passed near the Spratly Islands — an archipelago claimed by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brune.

The deployment of the Milius immediately triggered a condemnation from China, which said the vessel had "illegally intruded" into its territorial waters.

Separately, Beijing warned on Monday that Taiwanese independence and cross-strait peace were "mutually exclusive", blaming Taipei and unnamed "foreign forces" supporting it for the tensions.

Beijing regards Chinese Taipei as an inseparable part of its territory and has vowed to take it back one day, even by force if necessary.

Under the internationally accepted "one China" principle, the global community -- the US included -- has agreed that there is officially only one Chinese government.

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