China will drastically escalate its military operations in the Taiwan Strait if the United States continues to strengthen ties with Taiwan, warned the editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times newspaper Hu Xijin.

Last Friday, 18 Chinese aircraft crossed the sensitive midline of the Taiwan Strait into the self-ruled island’s air defense identification zone, which coincided with a visit by the U.S. Under Secretary of State Keith Krach to Taiwan.

The recent Chinese military drills were of an “unprecedented” scale and sent a “very strong signal” that the People’s Liberation Army could mobilize rapidly in an offensive against Taiwan, Hu said in a video posted Monday on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

“They have been called drills, but in fact it is closer to real combat. It is a realistic rundown of the PLA’s rapid response scenario in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

China’s military exercises were in response to Krach’s Taiwan visit, Hu said, describing the tour as a “U.S. ploy to build its relationship with Taiwan using salami tactics.” Such ploys will not be tolerated and will elicit further military responses, he said.

The PLA’s next step may be to test fire missiles or fly jets over Taiwan’s landmass, unless Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen halts her efforts to court the U.S. administration, Hu added.

“Taiwan has sliced the tip of its own finger while using its salami tactics. Tsai and her ministers can either reverse course, or face annihilation,” he said.

The state-run newspaper Global Times tweeted an apparent death threat against Tsai on Saturday, that said “a war will be set off and Tsai will be wiped out” if her actions violated China’s anti-secession law.

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