BEIJING
\nChina staged fresh military drills around Taiwan on Monday, slamming a new visit by United States lawmakers to the island days after a similar trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi triggered a furious response from Beijing.
\nThe unannounced two-day trip by senior members of Congress prompted China to renew its rhetoric that it would \u201cprepare for war\u201d over Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing\u2019s leaders claim and have vowed to one day seize.
\nThe five-member congressional delegation \u2014 led by Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts \u2014 met with President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday, according to Washington\u2019s de facto embassy in Taipei.
\n\u201cThe delegation had an opportunity to exchange views with Taiwan counterparts on a wide range of issues of importance to both the United States and Taiwan,\u201d it said.
\nThe bipartisan trip sparked another bellicose response from Beijing, which said it had carried out a fresh round of \u201ccombat readiness patrol and combat drills in the sea and airspace around Taiwan island\u201d on Monday.
\n\u201cThe Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army continues to train and prepare for war, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely crush any form of \u2018Taiwan independence separatism and foreign interference attempts,\u201d Wu Qian, a spokesman for China\u2019s Defense Ministry, said.
\n\u201cWe warn the US and the DPP authorities: \u2018Using Taiwan to contain China\u2019 is doomed to failure,\u201d he added, referring to Taiwan\u2019s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
\nMonday\u2019s drills followed days of huge exercises around Taiwan in the wake of Pelosi\u2019s visit which saw Beijing send warships, missiles and jets into the waters and skies near the island.
\nTaipei condemned those drills and missile tests as preparation for an invasion.
\nChina\u2019s Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan but says it will use force if necessary to take the island and bristles at any perceived treatment of it as a sovereign nation state.<\/p>\n
\u2018Evil neighbour\u2019
\nThat decades-old threat was reiterated in a white paper published last week, when China\u2019s Taiwan Affairs Office said it would \u201cnot renounce the use of force\u201d against its neighbour and reserved \u201cthe option of taking all necessary measures\u201d.
\nTaipei has remained defiant throughout the standoff with Beijing, with Premier Su Tseng-chang saying the island welcomes \u201call countries and friends across the world\u201d who want to support it.
\n\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be too afraid to do anything, afraid to let visitors come and afraid to let our friends come, just because we have an evil neighbor next door,\u201d he said.
\nForeign minister Joseph Wu struck a similar tone after meeting the US delegation on Monday.
\n\u201cAuthoritarian China can\u2019t dictate how democratic Taiwan makes friends, wins support, stays resilient and shines like a beacon of freedom,\u201d Wu said in a tweet.
\nPelosi has stood by her visit which, combined with Beijing\u2019s response, sent tensions in the Taiwan Strait soaring to their highest in decades.
\nPresident Joe Biden said the US military was opposed to the trip by his fellow Democrat, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president.
\nCongress is constitutionally an equal branch of government in the United States, with lawmakers free to travel where they wish, and Taiwan enjoys bipartisan backing in divided Washington.
\nThe United States switched diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. But it remains a key ally of Taiwan and maintains de facto diplomatic relations with Taipei.
\nWashington\u2019s official policy opposes both Taiwan declaring independence and China forcibly changing the island\u2019s status.
\nIt remains deliberately ambiguous about whether it would come to Taiwan\u2019s aid militarily if China invaded.
\nVisits by senior US officials to Taiwan have happened for decades and even Pelosi\u2019s trip was not without precedent \u2014 then-speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich visited in 1997.
\nBut the frequency and profile of US visits has increased both under former president Donald Trump and Biden.
\nTaiwan has also seen a flurry of delegations visit from Europe and other Western allies in recent years, partly in response to Beijing\u2019s more aggressive stance under Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING China staged fresh military drills around Taiwan on Monday, slamming a new visit by United States lawmakers to the island days after a similar trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi triggered a furious response from Beijing. The unannounced two-day trip by senior members of Congress prompted China to renew its rhetoric that it would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-277436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n