China threatens major military exercises around Taiwan over Pelosi visit

China has threatened to hold major military exercises around Taiwan this week in an angry riposte to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi becoming the highest-profile American official to visit the island in a quarter of a century.

Shortly after Pelosi landed in Taipei late on Tuesday, China announced that the People’s Liberation Army would hold live-fire drills — exercises using live ammunition — at several points around Taiwan, including off the east coast where the PLA has become much more active over the past year.

The Chinese warning comes after the PLA earlier this week staged air and sea manoeuvres in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, as well as a string of military drills in other coastal areas, before Pelosi flew to Taiwan.

“From the evening of August 2, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will begin a series of joint military operations,” the PLA said. “These operations are meant as a stern deterrent against the severe increase of negative moves from the US regarding the Taiwan question and a severe warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ forces to conspire for ‘independence’.”

The visit by the 82-year-old Democrat has become a test of how far Beijing will go to deter foreign support for Taiwan. It will also test the US and China’s ability to manage a crisis in an increasingly tense relationship that is at its worst point since the countries established relations in 1979.

After arriving, Pelosi issued a statement saying her visit “honours America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy . . . as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy”.

But the trip, which was also opposed by the White House over concerns that it would spark a crisis, was lambasted by the Chinese government.

Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, described it as a “reckless & provocative move” while the Chinese foreign ministry said it would have a “severe impact” on US-China relations.

Pelosi is the most senior US official to visit Taiwan while in office since then Speaker Newt Gingrich travelled to Taipei in 1997. China claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has persistently warned that the PLA would “not sit by idly” if Pelosi dared visit.

The PLA said on Tuesday it would conduct exercises in the waters and airspace north, south-west and south-east of Taiwan, and would undertake long-range live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait and in waters off Taiwan’s east coast.

David Finkelstein, a veteran PLA expert who heads the China and Indo-Pacific division at CNA, a think-tank, said he could not remember China ever conducting major exercises off the east coast of Taiwan.

“Should the PLA conduct the exercises, which would not be surprising given how they have boxed themselves in rhetorically, one could say they would constitute a classic ‘show of force’,” Finkelstein said. 

It could not be confirmed if the PLA had started any of the exercises its eastern command said were imminent. China often claims to have conducted military activity near Taiwan that Taipei denies has taken place.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said China’s threat to hold live-fire exercise areas was aimed at threatening the country’s key ports and urban areas and unilaterally damaged regional peace and stability.

“This move does not help China’s international image and hurts the feelings of the people on both sides of the Strait,” the defence ministry said. “China’s warmongering moves clearly aim at psychologically intimidating our citizens.”

Underscoring concern about possible Chinese reactions, the US Air Force plane carrying Pelosi and her delegation did not fly directly from her previous stop of Kuala Lumpur to Taipei, instead taking a wide detour via Borneo and the Philippines.

Meia Nouwens, a PLA expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank, said the US military might have steered clear of the skies over the South China Sea — which China claims and has increasingly militarised — because the PLA has started deploying missiles on artificial islands that could pose a risk to the aircraft.

Hours before Pelosi arrived, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi accused the US of stirring up trouble and “hollowing out” its “one China” policy, under which it acknowledges Beijing’s view that Taiwan is part of China.

While China has threatened to invade if Taipei indefinitely refuses to submit to its control, some military experts argue Beijing’s military posturing seeks to discourage US-Taiwan engagement rather than being related to imminent invasion plans. They maintain China and the US are determined to avoid an escalation.

Pelosi flew to Taiwan over the objections of the White House, which maintained her visit would unnecessarily raise tensions with Beijing that are already extremely high.

Ahead of her landing in Taipei, secretary of state Antony Blinken on Monday warned China not to engage in any escalatory activity in response to Pelosi’s visit.

The White House said there were signs that China was preparing a military response that could include firing missiles into the Taiwan Strait for the first time since the last big Taiwan crisis in 1995-96.

But despite earlier suggestions by analysts that Pelosi could keep the stop brief and low-key to avoid inflaming tension with China further, she is spending the night and a full programme has been lined up for her on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, Pelosi will visit Taiwan’s parliament and then meet president Tsai Ing-wen. She will then have lunch at the Taipei Guest House, the Japanese colonial-era mansion where the foreign ministry treats visiting dignitaries, and a visit to a human rights memorial.

That would give her visit a higher profile than that of Gingrich, who stayed only a few hours 25 years ago.

“The Chinese always seek to undermine precedent,” said Vincent Chao, a former assistant to foreign minister Joseph Wu and former head of the political section at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington, “but we need to push back and defend precedent in order not to have our international space squeezed further.”

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