The Chinese military staged a second day of exercises around Taiwan on Wednesday, launching live-fire strikes in the East China Sea and practicing blockade operations near crucial shipping lanes to the east and west of the island.

The Chinese military has conducted large-scale drills around Taiwan as it again warned the self-ruled island against seeking formal independence.

One analyst called China’s large-scale drills a “pre-invasion operation” as it ramps up attacks on Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, calling him a “parasite.”

Chinese and US defense officials had their first known formal contact since Donald Trump returned to the White House, in a meeting that partially coincided with Beijing conducting large-scale military drills around Taiwan.

China has responded to Donald Trump’s new trade tariffs with its own charges on US imports. After Trump announced the imposition of an additional 34 percent charge on Chinese imports into the US, China has announced a levy at the same rate for US goods shipped to China.

China will impose 34% tariffs on all U.S. goods, the nation's finance minister said on Friday, news agencies repored. Why it matters: It's a steep escalation in the U.S-China trade war, following President Trump's reciprocal tariffs on one of America's largest trading partners.

In response to Donald Trump’s first term as president, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, initiated a campaign to reduce China’s economic dependence on America. Chinese officials are hoping that a revival in domestic demand,

China has vowed to hit back after President Donald Trump announced major new tariffs on its exports to the United States as part of his radical overhaul of a century of American global trade policy.

Shares slid further in Europe and Asia and U.S. futures also fell Friday as investors counted the potential costs of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest set of

China on Thursday urged the United States to immediately cancel its latest tariffs and vowed countermeasures to safeguard its own interests, after President Donald Trump declared sweeping levies on U.

Donald Trump’s latest tariff attack on China could imperil any possible “grand bargain” between Washington and Beijing and drive a hard decoupling between the world’s two largest economies, analysts said.

Countries have vowed to hit back at US President Donald Trump's global tariffs onslaught, as markets tumble over fears his trade war would damage the world economy. Trump spared almost no nation on his "Liberation Day",