- Chinese military exercises begin, with live fire
- Suspicious drones fly over Taiwan’s outlying islands
- Taiwan says several government websites were hacked
- China says it is an internal matter
TAIPEI, Aug 4 (Reuters) – China launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas surrounding Taiwan on Thursday, a day after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited on the self-governing island that Beijing considers Chinese territory. .
Shortly after the scheduled start at 0400 GMT, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the exercises had begun and would end at 0400 GMT on Sunday. They include actual shots in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, he said. Read more
Taiwanese officials have said the drills violate United Nations rules, invade Taiwan’s territorial space and are a direct challenge to free air and sea navigation.
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China is conducting drills on the busiest international waterways and aviation routes and this is “irresponsible and illegitimate behavior,” Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said.
Taiwan’s cabinet spokesman, expressing serious condemnation of the drills, also said the websites of the defense ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential office were attacked by hackers.
On Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified aircraft, likely drones, flew over the area of Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Islands near the mainland coast, Taiwan’s defense ministry said . Read more
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the military’s Kinmen Defense Command told Reuters that the drones arrived in pairs and flew over the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday night, around 9:00 p.m. ( 13:00 GMT). and at 10 p.m
“We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and chase them away. After that, they turned around. They entered our restricted area and that’s why we dispersed them,” he said.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and reserves the right to take it by force, said on Thursday that its differences with the self-ruled island were an internal matter. Read more
“Our punishment against external forces and external pro-independence forces is reasonable, lawful,” said China’s Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office.
Unusually, the drills in six areas around Taiwan were announced with a location map distributed by the official Xinhua news agency, a factor that for some analysts and scholars shows the need to play to both domestic audiences and foreigner Read more
On Thursday, the eight most popular articles on China’s Twitter-like service Weibo were related to Taiwan, with most expressing support for the exercises or fury at Pelosi.
“Let’s bring the motherland together,” several users wrote.
In Beijing, security in the area around the US embassy remained unusually tight on Thursday as it has been all week. There were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott American products.
“I think this (Pelosi’s visit) is a good thing,” said a man surnamed Zhao in the capital’s central business district. “It gives us an opportunity to surround Taiwan and then use that opportunity to take Taiwan by force. I think we should thank Comrade Pelosi.”
SOLIDARITY COMMITMENT
Pelosi, the highest-level American visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not prevent world leaders travel there.
China summoned the US ambassador to Beijing in protest against his visit and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make it very clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence, a red line for China. Read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that is the message we bring here today.”
The United States and Group of Seven foreign ministers warned China not to use Pelosi’s visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
“Unfortunately, Taiwan has been prevented from participating in global meetings, most recently the World Health Organization, due to objections from the Chinese Communist Party,” Pelosi said in a statement issued after her departure.
“While they can prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from traveling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy, to highlight its many achievements, and to reaffirm our commitment to the continued collaboration,” Pelosi added. . Read more
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Reporting by Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Tony Munroe; Written by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.