"Since taking office, the Taiwan regional leader has been stubbornly challenging the 'One China' principle, attempting to use force and relying on foreign countries to seek independence, which is pushing our Taiwan compatriots into a dangerous situation of war and peril," Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said in a statement. The ministry warned that Beijing’s countermeasures will go further each time Taiwan provokes with pro-independence moves. “Every time the secessionist movement provokes us, we will take our countermeasures one step further, until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved,” Wu Qian said. Taiwan on Tuesday detected dozens of Chinese warplanes and naval vessels off its coast, the second consecutive day of military exercises around the territory. The mainland has released detailed maps of the drills that show Taiwan encircled by forces from the People’s Liberation Army, the country’s armed forces. Navy and coast guard vessels and land-based missile units have been put on high alert, particularly around the Taiwan-controlled island groups of Kinmen and Matsu, which lie just off the Chinese coast and about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Taiwan main island across the strait. “In the face of external challenges and threats, we will continue to uphold the values of freedom and democracy,” the territory’s new leader, William Lai, told sailors and top security officials on Thursday while visiting a naval base in Taoyuan, south of Taipei. In his inauguration speech on Monday, Lai called on Beijing to end its military intimidation and said Taiwan was “a sovereign, independent nation where sovereignty belongs to the people.” The “One China” principle states that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China, but Beijing and Taipei have different interpretations of what that means. Settled by farmers and fishermen from the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Guangdong over the centuries, Taiwan has been ruled by the Dutch, the Spanish, the Chinese and the Japanese. At the end of World War II, it became part of the Republic of China, under the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. After losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists in 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to the island, which to this day officially calls itself the Republic of China, as opposed to the People’s Republic of China, the name of the government that took over on the mainland. It operates as a self-governing political entity, with its own military and外交, though it has never formally declared independence. Beijing considers the island to be a breakaway province that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary. “I hope that China will face up to the reality of the existence of the Republic of China [Taiwan’s official name] and choose dialogue rather than confrontation with goodwill,” Lai said in his inauguration speech. See Also: Taiwan cercada por caças e navios da marinha chinesa pelo segundo dia (Portuguese version)