Taiwan said it was monitoring the situation after multiple Chinese ships and aircraft crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait on Friday.
China has resumed its biggest military exercises in the waters around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, with the territory’s defense ministry saying multiple warships and fighter jets have crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
The drills, which on Thursday included the launch of ballistic missiles and the deployment of warplanes, follow a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the democratic island that Beijing claims as its own.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said multiple Chinese “warships and warplanes” conducted exercises in the Taiwan Strait as of 11 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Friday, crossing the middle line of the waterway that separates China and Taiwan.
The ministry said China’s military activities were “highly provocative” and that it was closely monitoring the “situation with the enemy”.
Thursday’s exercises included a “conventional missile fire attack” in waters east of Taiwan, China’s military said.
Beijing’s state-run Xinhua news agency said the Chinese military “flew over 100 combat aircraft, including fighter jets and bombers” during the exercise, as well as “over 10 destroyers and frigates”.
State broadcaster CCTV and the Communist Party’s Global Times tabloid reported that Chinese missiles had flown over the island, with the Global Times claiming the drills had “completely blockaded” the island.
Taiwan said the Chinese military had fired 11 Dongfeng-class ballistic missiles “in several batches”.
He said the missiles were high in the atmosphere and posed no threat, but did not provide details on their flight paths, citing intelligence concerns.
The US said the live-fire exercises were a gross overreaction to Pelosi’s visit.
Taiwan’s Prime Minister Suu Kyi has accused China of destroying the world’s most-used waterway with military exercises, calling the country an “evil neighbor” when reporters asked about Friday’s missile launches.
Asian airlines, including Singapore Airlines and Korean Air, diverted or canceled flights on Friday due to China’s ongoing military activity.
Japan launched a diplomatic protest after announcing that five of the nine missiles fired at its territory landed in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), while China summoned the Japanese ambassador over Japan’s involvement in a G7 statement condemning the military exercises .
China later canceled plans to meet Japanese officials on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Cambodia, and while top diplomat Wang Yi greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a pat on the shoulder, he appeared to ignore his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi . US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was also present at the talks in Phnom Penh.
Al Jazeera’s Florence Lui, who is in the Cambodian capital, described the mood at the meeting as “tense” and that the situation over Taiwan had overshadowed the discussions, which were expected to focus on the worsening crisis in Myanmar.
Pelosi, who is in Japan on the final leg of her tour of the region, held talks with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday and addressed the diplomatic storm surrounding her visit at a press conference afterward.
“We have said from the beginning that our representation here is not about changing the status quo in Taiwan or in the region,” she said, stressing that Beijing cannot isolate Taiwan by preventing Western officials from traveling there.
“The Chinese government is not happy that our friendship with Taiwan is strong,” she added.
“He’s bipartisan in the House and in the Senate, tremendous support for peace and the status quo in Taiwan.”
Taiwan has been self-governing since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang in a civil war that prompted the Nationalist government to relocate to the island.
The US has formal diplomatic relations with Beijing, but follows a policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan. He is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
Beijing has not ruled out using force to take control of Taiwan.
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