(National Times)BEIJING: China’s military began a live-fire exercise near Taiwan on Tuesday, maintaining pressure on the self-ruled island after staging large-scale drills and President Xi Jinping called for troops to prepare for war. China’s Communist Party has never ruled the island, but it claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has said it will not back of from gaining its control. This month it sent planes and warships around the island in what Beijing said was a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”. On Monday, the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) in the eastern island of Pingtan announced that “gun firing” would take place in a limited area close to the Chinese mainland, about 105 kilometres (66 miles) from Taiwan. The MSA said they would start at 9:00am local time (0100 GMT) and take place for four hours in an area encompassing about 150 square kilometres (60 square miles).Pingtan is the closest point in mainland China to Taiwan’s main island. Maritime authorities did not say which Chinese force would carry out the live firing, or its objective. In response to the drills, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it was closely monitoring China’s “military activities”. Taipei said the exercises could be part of Beijing’s “tactics to bolster its intimidation in conjunction with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait”.