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China has announced additional live-fire drills in the Bohai and Yellow seas as Beijing airs its fury over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan with military exercises near the island.
China’s Defense Ministry did not announce the purpose of the expanded drills, which come as the visit strained relations between the US and China, but come as Beijing is making its biggest show of force in Taiwan since ‘last strait crisis from 1995 to 1996 — in what he calls a warning to “provocateurs” who challenge Beijing’s claims over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy of 23 million.
China’s Maritime Safety Administration on Saturday announced five exclusion zones in the Yellow Sea where drills will be held from August 5 to 15, as well as four additional zones in the Bohai Sea where a month-long unspecified Chinese military operations from August. 8.
While China officially seeks what it calls “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, it also constantly threatens to take the island by force if the Taipei government declares formal independence.
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The diplomatic fallout from the visit rose sharply on Friday when Beijing imposed sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family, canceled military dialogues and suspended climate talks and other bilateral cooperation on issues such as transnational crime.
The White House summoned Chinese ambassador Qin Gang for “irresponsible” military actions, including launching missiles into the waters around Taiwan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the exercises an “extreme, disproportionate and escalated military response”.
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But China has shown no sign of slowing the pace of military exercises. The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command said on Sunday it would continue joint air and naval exercises in areas around Taiwan as planned, focusing on long-range strikes against targets in the sky.
After a record number of Chinese warplanes flew close to Taiwan’s airspace on Friday, 14 planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Saturday while 14 Chinese warships were active nearby. Three years ago, crossings of the informal boundary dividing the waterway were unheard of.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense described the Chinese drills on Saturday morning as a “mock attack on the main island of Taiwan”.
Taiwan has also reported drones and unidentified objects flying over Kinmen and Matsu, two Taiwanese-ruled islands closest to the coast of China’s Fujian province. The Kinmen Defense Command fired warning flares at three drones flying over its restricted waters on Saturday.
Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the PLA-affiliated National Defense University, told state broadcaster China Central Television in an interview published on Sunday that the exercises aimed to “completely destroy the so-called middle line” and demonstrate the capability of the China to prevent foreign intervention in a conflict over the blockade and control of the Bashi Channel, an important waterway between the western Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.
Military analysts have said Chinese live-fire drills that began Thursday and were held on all sides of Taiwan simulate a possible blockade of the island, but Taiwan’s government has said the disruption of sea lanes and flights so far has been limited.
Pelosi ended the congressional delegation’s tour of Asia on Friday by vowing that China would not succeed in isolating Taiwan.
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has waged a global lobbying campaign to diplomatically isolate Taiwan’s democratically elected government by poaching its diplomatic partners and fiercely opposing exchanges between Taipei and foreign officials.
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China accuses the United States of ditching its “one China” policy, which neither challenges nor endorses Beijing’s claims to the island, with moves to strengthen its unofficial relationship with Taiwan, including the first visit by president of the Chamber in 25 years. The White House maintains that policy has not changed.
Despite unprecedented military pressure, the Taiwanese public has remained largely calm in the face of escalating Chinese threats. President Tsai Ing-wen said Thursday: “We are calm and will not act hastily. We are rational and will not act to provoke.”
Annual Taiwanese military exercises held in the week before Pelosi’s visit were unchanged despite increasingly angry warnings from Beijing. As the drills began, local media reported that tourists visiting Xiaoliuqiu, a small island off the southwest coast of mainland Taiwan, gathered on the shore to see if they could spot Chinese missiles landing in nearby waters.
The Taiwan Stock Exchange had recovered from a brief midweek drop on Friday.
Pei Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.