China to hold military drills near Taiwan this week – report

China will stage military exercises in the East China Sea near Taiwan starting on Tuesday, AFP reports. This will be the third set of drills in a month and comes after the recent US approvals of arms sales worth billions to Taiwan, including F-16 fighter jets.

Ships will be prohibited from entering the waters off the coast of China’s eastern Zhejiang province for 48 hours, the Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration said in a brief notice on Monday.

It did not offer details on the scale of the exercises or which military units were involved, while state-backed newspaper Global Times called it a “live-fire drill.”

The People’s Liberation Army held two large military drills close to the Taiwan Strait in late July.