Chinese Military Stages Drills Around Taiwan

HONG KONG (AP) — The Chinese military says it dispatched air, navy and rocket troops to conduct joint military drills around Taiwan to warn against what it called separatist and “external interference” forces. Taiwan said it was placing its forces on alert and called the Beijing government “the biggest destroyer of peace.” The drills came after Beijing expressed anger at U.S. arms sales to the territory and a statement by Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, that its military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that the world’s second-biggest economy says must come under its rule. But the Chinese military did not mention the U.S. and Japan in its statement.