On Tuesday night, China’s vice-foreign minister, Xie Feng, “urgently summoned” the US ambassador, Nicholas Burns, to lodge stern representations. “Those plans show that the Sakishima Islands, including Yonaguni, Ishigaki, and Miyako, could be affected by People’s Liberation Army operations as they assume the PLA is operating to the east of Taiwan,” Tetsuo Kotani, a professor of global studies at Meikai University, told the Japan Times.Ĭhina’s ruling Communist party government, which regards Taiwan as its territory despite it having never ruled the island, has repeatedly warned of retaliation for the visit. Japanese analysts said the northern drills were also a clear warning to their government about islands over which Tokyo and Beijing both claim ownership. “Finally, they’ll also be seeking to get a better sense of the PLA’s coordination between air and maritime forces, particularly given the various scenarios that they’ve highlighted they will be exercising for.”Īcross the region, there is a growing sense of uncertainty, with the exercises having also upset regional neighbours. “They will also be paying attention to the types of exercises – eg, whether, how often and how far the PLA cross over the median line, which they did today … crossing well over the median line. “The US will be looking for the PLA’s use of conventional missiles in their inventory – eg, will China conduct anti-ship ballistic missile tests or use air-launched and ship-launched variants of ASBMs? Beijing said its drills were “necessary and just”.īeijing’s latest drills are being closely followed by Taiwan, the US and other regional powers, said Nouwens. Tsai said on Wednesday that Taiwan “will not back down” in the face of heightened military threats, and would “do whatever it takes to maintain Taiwan’s peace and stability”. Taipei has remained defiant in its rhetoric. China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner. Taiwanese authorities have said the proximity to some major ports combined with orders for all aircraft and sea vessels to steer clear of the area amount to a blockade.Ĭhina on Wednesday also expanded its trade suspensions on Taiwan to include additional agriculture products, following a ban on imports earlier in the week from more than 100 Taiwanese food companies. “In particular, the exclusion zones appear to no longer be focused on China’s coastline, but rather encircle Taiwan,” she said, adding that China has a different interpretation as to which laws apply to what it considers its own maritime zones. Veerle Nouwens, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based thinktank, said the location of the six exclusion zones was noteworthy. Taiwan’s defence ministry accused Beijing of planning to violate the international convention on the law of sea, by breaching Taiwan’s sovereign territory. But as the American left, Taiwan was facing days of military activity which threaten to escalate into a fourth Taiwan strait crisis. In a later statement, she said China could not prevent world leaders from travelling to Taiwan “to pay respect to its flourishing democracy”.Īs Pelosi’s plane took off from Songshan airport on Wednesday evening, Wu waved goodbye from the tarmac. She said US solidarity with Taiwan was “crucial” in facing an increasingly authoritarian China. “Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon Taiwan, and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” Pelosi said on Wednesday, when she was given Taiwan’s highest civilian order by Tsai. She addressed Taiwan’s parliament on Wednesday before having public and private meetings with the president, Tsai Ing-wen. Pelosi arrived in Taipei on Tuesday night under intense global scrutiny, and was met by the foreign minister Joseph Wu and the US representative in Taiwan, Sandra Oudkirk. On Wednesday night two suspected drones flew over Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Island, with Taiwan’s military firing flares in response. While China’s military often holds live-fire exercises in the strait and surrounding seas, those planned for this week encircle Taiwan’s main island and target areas within its territorial sea.Īhead of the drill, it said 27 Chinese warplanes had entered its air defence identification zone, including flights over the median line – the unofficial border in the Taiwan strait.
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