China has launched large-scale military naval and air exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, hours after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taipei after a stormy visit that angered Beijing.
State media said the live-fire drills in six areas around Taiwan began at noon local time (0400 GMT) and will continue until the same time on August 7.
China began military maneuvers on Tuesday evening after Pelosi’s arrival and later announced a range of retaliatory economic measures in response to Pelosi’s visit.
Military activity continued on Wednesday, with Taiwan saying the drills violated UN rules, invaded its territorial space and amounted to an air and sea blockade.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out using force to take control of the island.
The United States, although it has formal diplomatic relations with China, follows a policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan and is legally obligated to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
On Thursday, the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, described the exercises as a rehearsal for “unification operation(s)”.
“In the event of a future military conflict, it is likely that operational plans currently being rehearsed will be directly converted into combat operations,” Chinese military expert Song Zhongping was quoted as saying.
He announced that the military plans to launch combat long-range artillery across the Taiwan Strait.
“If the PLA’s conventional missiles were to be fired from the mainland towards the western part of Taiwan and hit targets in the east, it means that the missiles will fly over the island, which is unprecedented,” the paper quoted another Chinese mainland military official as saying. said expert Zhang Xuefeng.
Some of the six areas where Beijing has said the drills will be held fall within Taiwan’s territorial waters.
The island has already warned shipping companies and airlines to avoid these places.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said an unidentified aircraft, possibly drones, flew over the Kinmen Islands, a Taiwanese territory off China’s southeast coast, on Wednesday night and fired missiles in response.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waves with other members of the delegation as they board a plane to leave Taipei. Her visit to the self-ruled island angered Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own [Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Handout via Reuters]
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the Kinmen Defense Military Command told the Reuters news agency that the Chinese drones came in pairs and flew over the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday evening, around 21:00 (13:00 GMT) and 22:00 (14:00 GMT) 00 GMT).
“We immediately fired flares to warn and chase them away. Then they turned around. They entered our restricted area and that is why we dispersed them,” he said.
The Group of Seven developed nations expressed concern about China’s response to Pelosi’s visit, calling for calm and saying moves by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) risked unnecessary escalation.
“There is no justification for using a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait,” the G7 foreign ministers said in a statement. “It is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel abroad. China’s escalating response risks increasing tensions and destabilizing the region.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting in Phnom Penh also expressed concern that rising tensions over Taiwan could lead to “miscalculations” and called for “maximum restraint”.
Pelosi’s visit was the first by a sitting House speaker, the third-highest-ranking US politician, in 25 years. Beijing threatened “serious consequences” if she continued the visit.
The last major crisis in the Taiwan Strait occurred in 1996, on the eve of the re-election of President Li Teng Hui, who had visited the United States the previous year.
Since then, China has modernized and expanded its armed forces, launching its first aircraft carrier and testing a hypersonic weapon.
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