On Thursday, Taiwan’s army held another live-fire drill after China concluded its largest-ever military exercises around the East Asian island, as it threatened to take control of the self-ruled democracy.

In retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week, which made her the highest-ranking elected American official to visit the island in decades, Beijing staged air and sea drills around the island for days, raising tensions to their highest level in years.

Taiwan has accused China of using Pelosi’s visit as an excuse to begin drills to prepare for an invasion.

Taiwan’s Eighth Army Corps spokesman, Lou Woei-jye, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that its forces fired howitzers and target flares as part of the defensive drill on Thursday morning.

The drill began at 8:30 a.m. in the island’s southernmost county of Pingtung. He said it lasted about an hour.

A livestream showed artillery tucked in from the coast lined up side by side, with armed soldiers in units firing the howitzers out to sea one after the other.

On Tuesday, Taiwan held a similar drill in Pingtung. Hundreds of troops were deployed in both cases.

The military has downplayed their significance, claiming that they were already planned and not in response to China’s war games.

“We have two goals for the drills. The first is to certify the proper condition of the artillery and their maintenance condition, and the second is to confirm the results of last year,” Lou stated.

The latest exercise came after China’s military announced the end of its own drills in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, saying its forces “successfully completed various tasks” while vowing to continue patrolling its waters.

However, the armed forces — formally known as the People’s Liberation Army — added that they would “continue to carry out military training and prepare for war” in the same announcement.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office stated in a separate white paper published on Wednesday that Beijing would, “not renounce the use of force” against its neighbor and reserved “the option of taking all necessary measures.”

“We are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form,”

China’s last white paper on Taiwan was issued in 2000.