Washington's overreaction to PLA drills serves as a telling sign of its duplicity

Despite Beijing unequivocally stating the military exercises it launched this week near the Taiwan island "are a serious warning and an act of containment against 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces, and a legitimate and necessary move to defend national sovereignty and uphold national unity", some still wrongly insist they are a test of the United States' and its allies' resolve to "defend" Taiwan.

They try and justify their claim by citing the timing of the drills, which came after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's first visit to the Asia-Pacific, during which he said the US would provide "credible deterrence" in the region, including in the Taiwan Strait.

But anyone with their finger on the pulse of cross-Strait relations should have been expecting the exercises. It was inevitable that the central authorities would respond to the extremely provocative speech Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te gave last month, in which he referred to the island as "a sovereign democratic state", called the mainland a "hostile external force", and vowed a series of measures to purge mainland elements on the island.