China deployed warplanes and fired live missiles near Taiwan on Thursday in its biggest drills in the Taiwan Strait, a day after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a trip to the self-governing island.
Chinese military conducted “precision missile strikes”n waters off Taiwan’s coasts as part of military exercises in six zones set to run until noon on Sunday. It activated more than 100 planes, including fighter jets and bombers, and over 10 warships, state broadcaster CCTV said.
“All missiles hit the target accurately,” the Eastern Theater said in its announcement. No further details were given.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen criticized the drills in a public address, saying China “destroyed the status quo and violated our sovereignty” with its “irresponsible actions.” She urged China to be “reasonable and restrained.”
Five of the missiles fired by China landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Hateruma,, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said. He said Japan protested the missile landings to China as “serious threats to Japan’s national security and the safety of the Japanese people.”
U.S says China is overreacting to Pelosi’s visit
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned the launches. The United States said that China’s launch of ballistic missiles around Taiwan was an overreaction to the visit of Pelosi. “China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Kirby called China’s actions part of a “manufactured crisis.”
U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, who is on a visit to Cambodia, said he “hopes very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretense to increase its aggressive military action”.
Meanwhile, China has called the US “the biggest saboteur of peace,” as its foreign ministry spokesperson slammed the US and US House Speaker’s recent visit to Taiwan.
The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said China had no reason to overreact after Pelosi visited, saying “The US and other Nato allies have paid visits with high-ranking officials to Taiwan regularly over the years, and therefore this is no reason for China to overreact.”
