On April 11, Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret.), a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a China Forum expert, discussed China’s recent military drills around Taiwan with CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia.

The Taiwanese authorities have been challenging the one-China principle in its own provocative ways, but our message is very clear: Taiwan remains part of China and we will not tolerate any provocations, Zhou stressed in the interview. The military exercise is a follow-up of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last summer as well as a measured response to Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States.

No live ammunition was fired during this exercise; the PLA focused more on enhancing its combat capabilities, such as better integration among different services, said Zhou. He believes that if the Taiwanese authorities do not stop such provocations, the pressure on them will only increase.

Watch the interview here: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/04/11/former-chinese-military-officer-zhou-bo-on-chinas-taiwan-drills.html