TAIPEI: China has reacted more robustly to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's rhetoric defending the island's sovereignty than his predecessor's, with fiery threats and war games analysts say will likely intensify.

Since Lai succeeded Tsai Ing-wen in May, China has staged two large-scale military drills around the island – most recently on Monday (Oct 14) – and verbally attacked the new leader at every turn over his speeches and comments.

Beijing calls Lai a "separatist" and has accused him of escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait – the sensitive waterway that separates Taiwan and China.

China's ruling Communist Party has never controlled Taiwan, but it claims the island as part of its territory and has said it will never renounce the use of force to take it.

"I think it took Beijing about two years into Tsai's presidency before Beijing began to single out Tsai by name when they criticised Taiwan," said Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub.

"Beijing has been singling out Lai by name for these kinds of critiques from the get-go."

Lai and Tsai, who both belong to the Democratic Progressive Party, share the position that there is no need for Taiwan to formally declare independence as it is "already independent".

But Lai's use of stronger language than Tsai when standing up for the island's sovereignty and criticising China's actions has enraged Beijing.

China launched large-scale military drills three days after Lai took office and gave an inauguration speech that China denounced as a "confession of independence".

Last Thursday, Lai delivered his first National Day address, vowing to "resist annexation" and insisting that Beijing and Taipei were "not subordinate to each other".

China warned after the speech that Lai's "provocations" would result in "disaster" for the people of Taiwan – and on Monday it sent fighter jets, drones and warships to surround the island.

"Lai Ching-te made provocative remarks first, and the PLA took necessary actions to punish him after that," Lieutenant Colonel Fu Zhengnan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told state media on Monday.

Taipei condemned Beijing's actions as "irrational and provocative", and the island's key backer and biggest arms supplier Washington called them "disproportionate".

"It is a routine, domestic-focused address that has historically prompted little response from the PRC," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said Monday, using the acronym for China's formal name.

"Still, the PRC has chosen this opportunity to take provocative, military action."

The latest sea and air drills lasted only a day, much shorter than previous major exercises, which analysts attributed to the looming US presidential election along with China's fiscal worries and the potential for bad weather.

"China does not want to risk making itself a campaign issue in the closing weeks of the US presidential campaignjb casino," said Sung.

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