Aug 05,2022:China has resumed its largest-ever military exercises in the waters around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, with the territory’s defence ministry saying numerous warships and fighter aircraft had crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line.
The exercises, which on Thursday included firing ballistic missiles and deploying fighter jets, follow the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the democratic island, which Beijing claims as its own.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said that multiple Chinese “warships and warplanes” had conducted exercises in the Taiwan Strait as of 11am (03:00 GMT) on Friday, crossing the median line of the waterway that separates China and Taiwan.
The ministry said China’s military activities were “highly provocative” and that it was monitoring the “enemy situation” closely.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the military exercises – which also included firing missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone – as a “significant escalation”.
“China has chosen to overreact and use Speaker Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” Blinken said at a news conference following a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on Friday.
