China Doubles Down on Friction in Taiwan’s Front-Line Islands

News Snapshot:

Beijing has warned Taipei not to "stir up trouble" as Taiwan prepares to hold military drills in a group of front-line islands just a stone's throw from China's shores. The land-to-sea live-fire drills, which Taiwanese authorities have stressed are routine rather than retaliatory, will be held April 2 on the Kinmen islands, an archipelago on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, which Taiwan administers as an outlying county. Kinmen—close enough to be seen with the naked eye from the Chinese port city of Xiamen—was shelled by Communist forces during the Cold War and today remains heavily fortified. It has...