China has no justification for using an annual national day speech by Taiwan as a pretext for military pressure, the United States said on Wednesday, ahead of scheduled remarks by the island's president that Taiwan officials say Beijing is likely to follow with military drills.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te is preparing to sound a warning about China’s latest plans to apply pressure against the island by holding military drills that will coincide with his major speech on Thursday.

It is “absolutely impossible” for Communist China to become Taiwan’s motherland because the island’s government is older, Taiwan’s president has said in a carefully timed speech that underscores the intense historical rivalry between the two.