The US Defence Department has released its annual report on military and security developments regarding China. It highlights a strategy being advanced by the Chinese military aimed at blocking intervention by US forces in the western Pacific and states that China’s target of military modernisation is to undermine the regional pre-eminence of the US forces.

The People’s Liberation Army held live-fire military drills on Wednesday in the Taiwan Straits sending a clear political message to both the island and the world: The Chinese mainland will never allow Taiwan to secede from the motherland.