A Chinese naval formation including aircraft carrier Liaoning will visit Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in early July in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) being stationed in HKSAR.

Liang Yang, spokesperson for the PLA Navy, said Sunday that the flotilla will also consist of guided-missile destroyers, missile frigates, J-15 fighter jets, and helicopters.

Officers and soldiers will attend various exchanges and activities with Hong Kong residents and the PLA Garrison in the HKSAR, and the warships will be open for the public to visit, Liang said.

The visit will help increase Hong Kong residents’ understanding of achievements made in national defense and army building, especially naval building, Liang said.

The PLA Hong Kong Garrison has been responsible for the defense of Hong Kong since its return to the motherland in 1997.

China lashed out at the United States over the Trump administration’s approval of a Taiwan arms deal, with the authorities demanding the US stop the sales.

The Trump administration had notified the US Congress of “seven proposed defense sales for Taiwan” worth about $1.42 billion, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Thursday, adding that there is no change to Washington’s one-China policy.

The arms sales, the first such deal with Taiwan since Donald Trump took office as US president, will go forward unless the US Congress formally objects in the next 30 days, according to the Associated Press.

China, having lodged solemn representations to the US in both Beijing and Washington, “strongly urges” the country to revoke the arms sales and cut military contacts with Taiwan to avoid further damaging China-US ties and cooperation in important fields, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday.

The arms sales would be a grave violation of the principles of the three joint communiques between China and the US and damage China’s sovereignty and security interests, Lu said.

They also run counter to the spirit of the important consensus that the two countries’ heads of state reached in their meeting in Florida in April, and are not in line with the general trend of the development of bilateral ties or the US’s own interests, Lu pointed out.

Ren Guoqiang, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, said: “China is resolutely opposed to arms sales to Taiwan by the government of any foreign country.”

“The position of the Chinese military over safeguarding China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is firm and clear,” Ren said.

The revelation of the arms deal came one day after a US Senate committee completed a markup of a bill, allowing the US Navy to make regular port calls in Taiwan. This drew an immediate protest from China.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, warned on Friday: “Any behavior of relying on foreign forces to magnify oneself and damage peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits will surely backfire.”

Cui Tiankai, Chinese ambassador to the US, told reporters on the sidelines of a reception at the Chinese embassy on Thursday the arms deal “will certainly undermine the mutual confidence between the two sides”.

A mudslide in central China’s Hunan Province Saturday afternoon killed three people, leaving another 19 injured and five missing, according to local governnment.

The mudslide happened at about 4 p.m. in Zuta Village of Ningxiang County after heavy rain for a long time since Friday. Search and rescue were underway overnight.

China’s summer transport peak period began Saturday, with a record-high number of passenger trips expected to be made by train this year.

The period runs from July 1 to August 31, when students on summer vacation have time to travel or return home.

A total of 598 million passenger trips are expected to be made by train during the 62-day period, rising by 49.7 million year on year, according to China Railway Corporation.

Railway authorities have put a new transport route plan into operation, which adds more trains at transport hubs and elevates average passenger capacity.

Under the new route plan, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta cities Shanghai and Hangzhou, as well as Xuzhou, will open high-speed trains to the northwestern city of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province during the summer peak period.

The Yangtze River Delta railway network is estimated to have 116 million passenger trips during the period, an increase of 9.2 percent from the same period last year.

Beijing will increase 32 pairs of trains to serve students and tourists during the travel peak, according to the Beijing Railway Bureau.

“Today is the first day of the summer transport period. We estimate the Beijing Railway Station will handle 210,000 outbound passenger trips on Saturday,” said Wang Fan, an official in charge of passenger transport at the station.

Passengers can take bullet trains for the first time from Beijing to Xiongan New Area in neighboring Hebei Province next week, according to the China Railway Corporation.

High-speed trains become a popular choice for tourists.

“My children have begun their summer holidays. We will make a visit to Nanjing,” said a woman surnamed Lu at the south railway station in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province. It was the first time for Lu to board a high-speed train.

In the southwestern Yunnan Province, high-speed trains are applied for this year’s summer transport for the first time. In December, Yunnan opened high-speed trains bound for the eastern metropolis Shanghai and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region respectively.

Passengers who take high-speed trains to Yunnan will increase a lot this summer, according to the Kunming Railway Station.

China is scheduled to launch the Long March-5 Y2, the country’s second heavy-lift carrier rocket, from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province Sunday, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence said Saturday.

Propellant for the rocket, which will send the Shijian-18 communication satellite into orbit, began to be pumped in on Saturday afternoon, it said.

After arriving at the launch base in early May, the rocket has been assembled and tested there.

The launch will be the last drill for the Long March-5 series before it carries the Chang’e-5 lunar probe into space in the latter half of this year, according to the administration.

Media are allowed to live broadcast the launch, the administration said.

The Long March-5 made its maiden flight in November 2016 in Wenchang. It can carry a payload of 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit, over two times the capacity of current carrier rockets.

China has scheduled eight launches of Long March-5 in the coming years for the nation’s lunar probe, manned space station and Mars probe missions.