China's leader makes rare visit to province facing Taiwan following major war exercises

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s President Xi Jinping made a rare visit to a province facing Taiwan following military exercises that mobilized China's navy, air force, missile force and land troops to simulate a blockade of the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory and threatens to annex by force.

Xi did not comment on the military exercises during his visit to Fujian province, according to the official Xinhua News Agency, but his visit came on the heels of China’s dispatch of a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday.

Xi has largely avoided public appearances and foreign travel over the past year, but bringing Taiwan under Beijing's control remains a priority for his administration as head of the ruling Communist Party and its military, the People's Liberation Army.

Taiwan’s newly elected president Lai Ching-te has been vociferously criticized by Beijing for rejecting its position that Tawian is a part of China.

The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”

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 Zedong’s Communists defeated them in a civil war and took power.