TAIPEI
\nChina launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan on Thursday, a day after a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign territory.
\nSoon after the scheduled start at 0400 GMT, China\u2019s state broadcaster CCTV said the drills had begun and would end at 0400 GMT on Sunday. They would include live firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding Taiwan, it said.
\nTaiwan officials have said the drills violate United Nations rules, invade Taiwan\u2019s territorial space and are a direct challenge to free air and sea navigation.
\nChina is conducting drills on the busiest international waterways and aviation routes and that is \u201cirresponsible, illegitimate behaviour,\u201d Taiwan\u2019s ruling Democratic Progressive Party said.
\nTaiwan\u2019s cabinet spokesman, expressing serious condemnation of the drills, said also that the websites of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential office were attacked by hackers.
\nChinese navy ships and military aircraft briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line several times on Thursday morning, a Taiwanese source briefed on the matter told Reuters.
\nBy midday on Thursday, military vessels from both sides remained in the area and in close proximity.
\nTaiwan scrambled jets and deployed missile systems to track multiple Chinese aircraft crossing the line.
\n\u201cThey flew in and then flew out, again and again. They continue to harass us,\u201d the Taiwanese source said.
\nOn Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified aircraft, probably drones, flew above the area of Taiwan\u2019s outlying Kinmen islands near the mainland coast, Taiwan\u2019s defence ministry said.
\nChina, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and reserves the right to take it by force, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island were an internal affair.
\n\u201cOur punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful,\u201d China\u2019s Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said.
\nChina\u2019s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Pelosi\u2019s visit to Taiwan a \u201cmanic, irresponsible and highly irrational\u201d act by the United States, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
\nWang, speaking at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, said China had made the utmost diplomatic effort to avert crisis, but would never allow its core interests to be hurt.
\nThe foreign ministers in a statement had earlier warned that volatility caused by tensions in the Taiwan Strait could lead to \u201cmiscalculation, serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers\u201d.
\n\u2018Comrade Pelosi\u2019
\nUnusually, the drills in six areas around Taiwan were announced with a locator map circulated by China\u2019s official Xinhua news agency earlier this week – a factor that for some analysts and scholars shows the need to play to both domestic and foreign audiences.
\nOn Thursday, the top eight trending items on China\u2019s Twitter-like Weibo service were related to Taiwan, with most expressing support for the drills or fury at Pelosi.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s reunite the motherland,\u201d several users wrote.
\nIn Beijing, security in the area around the US Embassy remained unusually tight on Thursday as it has been throughout this week. There were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott US products.
\n\u201cI think this (Pelosi\u2019s visit) is a good thing,\u201d said a man surnamed Zhao in the capital\u2019s central business district. \u201cIt gives us an opportunity to surround Taiwan, then to use this opportunity to take Taiwan by force. I think we should thank Comrade Pelosi.\u201d
\nPelosi, the highest-level US visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there.
\nChina summoned the US ambassador in Beijing in protest against her visit and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
\n\u201cOur delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,\u201d Pelosi told Taiwan\u2019s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China.
\n\u201cNow, more than ever, America\u2019s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that\u2019s the message we are bringing here today.\u201d
\nThe United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using Pelosi\u2019s visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
\nWhite House national security spokesman John Kirby said earlier in the week that Pelosi was within her rights to visit Taiwan, while stressing that the trip did not constitute a violation of Chinese sovereignty or America\u2019s longstanding \u201cone-China\u201d policy.
\nThe United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself.
\nChina views visits by US officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China\u2019s sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island\u2019s future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TAIPEI China launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan on Thursday, a day after a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign territory. Soon after the scheduled start at 0400 GMT, China\u2019s state broadcaster CCTV said the drills had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-275679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n