CHINA kept up the psychological pressure on Taiwan yesterday, conducting a fresh missile test and larger scale war games to show its military might.
The display of firepower just 10 days before Taiwan's first presidential elections - was accompanied by another verbal attack on the front runner in the polls, President Lee Teng hui.
Taiwan's Defence Ministry said it detected more than 30 groups of Chinese warplanes, including Su-27s bought from Russia, and more than 10 warships conducting exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
The exercises, due to last until next Wednesday, were on a larger scale than those staged on Tuesday but did not stray outside an area previously announced by Beijing.
"The exercises all took place within the announced waters and air space," according to the Taiwanese Defence Ministry. "They were closely monitored by our forces.
China also fired an unarmed M-9 ballistic missile earlier yesterday into a target area off Taiwan's south west coast.
China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province and its sabre rattling has been widely viewed as an attempt to intimidate the island ahead of elections on March 23rd.
Beijing fears Mr Lee is seeking independence for Taiwan, a charge he denies. However, he maintains he only wants a more prominent role for the island on the world stage, in line with its growing economic importance.
China's official Xinhua news agency accused Mr Lee of being "dictatorial" and of tinkering with Taiwan's constitution to enhance his powers. Mr Lee's supporters say Beijing wants to weaken the President politically by reducing his margin of victory.
Mr Lee's vice presidential running mate, the Prime Minister, Mr Lien Chan, said the ticket needed 50 per cent of the vote so it would have a strong mandate to negotiate with China.
The spokesman for Mr Lee's governing Nationalist Party said yesterday that China might hold more exercises before the elections.
The Defence Minister, Mr Chiang Cung ling, has said the island - which has armed forces of 468,000 compared with China's three million could fight back if its arch rival violated territorial waters in a 12 nautical mile zone around its shores.
China has mobilised 150,000 troops in coastal Fujian province for the drills along with four sub marines, 10 other navy ships 300 warplanes, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
The muscle flexing by Beijing has rung alarm bells outside Taiwan as well as on the island, bringing expressions of concern from numerous countries.
In Washington, the Clinton administration said it was disturbed by the new missile calling it a provocative act.
The US has also moved to beef up its forces in the region. The US aircraft carrier Nimitz, a submarine and six other ships were to leave the Middle East this week to join the carrier Independence, already on station about 100 miles east of Taiwan.
The two carrier force, including a submarine and about 10 other warships, will be one of the largest US armadas in the region since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
Washington has said it wants to assert its interests in the western Pacific through the presence of its military assets". But Taiwan says it does not want "foreigners to go to war" on its behalf.
"Any movement by the United States is triggered by its own interests. We cannot expect them to fulfil our demands," the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Rock Leng, said on Taiwan television.
Taiwan said the exercises were held near Dongshan Island off China's south east coast between the cities of Xiamen in Fujian province and Shantou in Guangdong province.
Residents in coastal cities in Guangdong and Fujian said they heard loud booms in the morning and afternoon.
On the Taiwan held island of Quemoy, just 1.2 miles off China's coast, soldiers were digging in and reoccupying pill boxes that had been abandoned in less tense times.
But Taiwanese soldiers allowed groups of fishermen from China to bring their boats almost to the island's shore and use explosives to stun their catches.