Mainland China’s increasing military drills and incursions into Taiwan’s air space are threatening not only the island’s security but the safety of the entire region, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday.

Tsai called on Beijing to restrain its military and stop provoking Taiwan. The People’s Liberation Army has been conducting combat-oriented drills across the Taiwan Strait for three consecutive days, coinciding with a visit to the self-governing island by Keith Krach, the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.

Planes from the PLA air force entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone again on Sunday morning, ignoring warnings broadcast by Taiwan’s air force. The U.S. air force’s EP-3 and E-8C aircraft were seen patrolling in the same air space.

However, mainland China has indicated that the incursions will continue. Live combat drills will be carried out in southern areas of the Yellow Sea for three consecutive days from Sept. 21 onwards, the Lianyungang Maritime Safety Administration of Jiangsu Province announced online. That will be the PLA’s third such exercise in the Yellow Sea since Aug. 22.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has said it will not initiate any provocative moves but will fight back should Beijing forces attack, according to Taiwanese media reports.

Meanwhile, a senior mainland official warned that Taiwan’s pro-independence political forces will lead the island onto a dangerous and irreversible path. Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, made the statement in a video addressed to the 12th Straits Forum held in Xiamen, Fujian province. He stressed that there is only “one China” under the 1992 consensus.

A U.S. commentator has warned that mainland China’s military drills are testing U.S. operational capabilities as well as Taiwan’s responses. Seth Cropsey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former deputy undersecretary of the Navy, wrote in The Hill newspaper that the best time for Beijing to attack Taiwan would be during the week of the Nov. 3 U.S. election. “A country embroiled in a succession crisis is much less likely to intervene in a high-end great-power conflict,” he said.

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