China begins live-fire military drills around Taiwan

Pelosi, who left Taiwan on Wednesday evening, was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in 25 years. Beijing claims the self-ruling democracy of 24 million people as its territory, and viewed her visit as an infringement of its sovereignty.

Pelosi’s visit and Beijing’s furious response have sent tensions in the Taiwan Strait to their highest point in decades, further straining relations between China and the United States.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described Pelosi’s  visit as “manic, irresponsible and highly irrational,” Reuters reported, citing Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Speaking in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Wang said China was taking necessary and timely defensive countermeasures to protect its sovereignty and security.

A spokesperson for China’s military later told the official Xinhua news agency that the exercises were “a strong deterrent to collusion between the United States and Taiwan.”

Later, in a separate statement to state media, PLA Senior Colonel Shi Yi said sea and airspace control off the eastern coast of Taiwan had been lifted “since the live-fire missile drills have hit the targets precisely.”

The Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Ministry strongly condemned the launches, which it compared to missile tests by North Korea, and called on the international community to continue to show solidarity with Taiwan.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry repeated its resolve to avoid escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese forces “are operating as usual and monitor our surroundings in response to irrational activities from PRC, aiming for changing the status quo & destabilizing the region’s security,” it said on Twitter on Thursday, using an abbreviation for China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “We seek no escalation, but we don’t stand down when it comes to our security and sovereignty.”

In a televised address, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi also called the drills “a serious problem that affects the security of Japan, as well as the safety of our people.”

“It appears that China launched nine ballistic missiles,” he said, adding that it was “estimated that five of these missiles fell within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.”

“We strongly condemn this incident and we have lodged our complaint to China through diplomatic channels,” Kishi said. 

Though an actual Chinese invasion of Taiwan does not appear to be imminent, some experts say the Pelosi visit has given China a valuable opportunity to conduct ambitious military maneuvers that might help prepare for one.

China’s exercises “are designed to test, under real world conditions, whether Beijing can effectively blockade Taiwan, a feat that will factor heavily in determining whether China can, in fact, sustain a prolonged military campaign against [it],” Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said in written comments.   

China had already heightened its military activities around Taiwan before Pelosi arrived on the island. On Wednesday, while she was there, it sent 27 warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone, which is wider than the island’s official airspace.

Two of the formations crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, according to mapping provided by Taiwanese authorities, a deviation from the usual flight path. China conducts such military sorties almost daily, but the number is usually in the single digits.

On Wednesday evening, after Pelosi left, Taiwan’s military shot warning flares at an unidentified aircraft over Kinmen, a Taiwanese island about 6 miles off the coast of China.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said Thursday that it appeared to be an unmanned drone. It stressed the move was in line with standard operating procedures, telling people to remain calm.