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Chi­na’s mil­i­tary on Mon­day dis­patched air, navy and mis­sile units to con­duct joint live-fire drills around the is­land of Tai­wan, which Bei­jing called a “stern warn­ing” against sep­a­ratist and “ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence” forces. Tai­wan said it was plac­ing its forces on alert and called the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment “the biggest de­stroy­er of peace.”

Tai­wan’s avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ty said more than 100,000 in­ter­na­tion­al air trav­el­ers would be af­fect­ed by flight can­cel­la­tions or di­ver­sions.

The drills came af­ter Bei­jing ex­pressed anger at what could be the largest-ever U.S. arms sale to the self-ruled ter­ri­to­ry and at a state­ment by Japan’s prime min­is­ter, Sanae Takaichi, say­ing its mil­i­tary could get in­volved if Chi­na were to take ac­tion against Tai­wan. Chi­na says Tai­wan must come un­der its rule.