TAIPEI: China announced on Friday that it was halting talks with the US in a number of areas, including theater-level military commanders and on climate change, sparked by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
China’s foreign ministry said it was also suspending exchanges with Washington to combat cross-border crime and drug trafficking, all moves Washington called “irresponsible”.
When Pelosi became the highest-level US visitor in 25 years to the self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory, China on Thursday launched military exercises in the sea and skies around Taiwan. The biggest ever live-fire exercise by China in the Taiwan Strait will continue till Sunday afternoon.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a Chinese military H-6K bomber is seen conducting training exercises, as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force conducts a combat air patrol in the South China Sea on November 23, 2017. did. (AP)
Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Friday it fired jets to warn Chinese planes it had entered the island’s air defense zone, some of which crossed the Taiwan Strait midline , which is an informal buffer separating the two sides.
Highlight
• China is conducting unprecedented military exercises around Taiwan
• Pentagon says China is no longer responding to its calls
• America called China’s move irresponsible
The ministry said a total of 68 Chinese military aircraft and 13 naval ships had carried out missions in the strait.
China’s Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said in a statement that it conducted air and sea exercises “to test the combined combat capabilities of the troops” in the north, southwest and east of Taiwan on Friday.
Three French-built Mirage 2000 fighter jets taxi onto a runway in front of the hangar at Hsinchu Air Base in Hsinchu on August 5, 2022. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington has repeatedly made clear to Beijing that it does not want a crisis over Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan during a congressional tour of Asia earlier this week.
“There is no justification for this extreme, disproportionate and escalating military response,” he said at a news conference on the sidelines of the ASEAN regional meetings in Cambodia, adding, “Now, they have taken dangerous acts to a new level.”
Blinken stressed that the United States would not act to provoke the crisis, but that it would continue to support regional allies and operate standard air and sea transit through the Strait of Taiwan.
“We will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” he said.
A US official said on condition of anonymity that Chinese officials did not respond to calls made by senior Pentagon officials this week, but called the move Pelosi’s visit rather than bridging the channel between senior Chinese defense officials. was seen as showing unhappiness. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a media briefing after the ASEAN meetings: “I heard that US Secretary of State Blinken held his news conference and spread some misinformation and was not telling the truth.”
“We want to issue a warning to the United States: Don’t act in haste, don’t create a bigger crisis than this,” Wang said.
“The only way out of this crisis is for the US side to correct its mistakes and take immediate measures to eliminate the serious impact of Pelosi’s visit,” Jing Quan, a senior Chinese embassy official in Washington, told a briefing. “
He said Washington should “refrain from pushing China-US relations down a dangerous path of conflict and confrontation.”
diplomatic front
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said China’s move to suspend some communication channels was “fundamentally irresponsible”.
“There is nothing here to improve the United States. The Chinese can go a long way to de-escalating tensions by stopping these inflammatory military exercises and ending the rhetoric,” Kirby told reporters.
China did not mention the suspension of military talks at the highest levels, such as with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. Although those conversations have been few, officials have said it is important to have them in case of an emergency or accident.
A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft flies over a 68-nautical-mile scenic spot one of the closest points to mainland China’s Taiwan Island, Pington Island, Fujian Province, China August 5, 2022. (Reuters)
Kirby said it was not unusual for China to call off military talks at a time of tension, but that “not all channels” between the two countries’ military leaders had been cut.
The Pentagon said China was overreacting and Washington was still ready to build a crisis communication system.
“Part of this over-reaction is strictly limiting its defense activities once any responsible state recognizes that we need them most,” Pentagon acting spokesman Todd Bresley said.
Beijing separately announced that it would impose sanctions on Pelosi personally and his immediate family in response to “vicious” and “inflammatory” actions.
Speaking at a news conference in Japan after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Pelosi said his Asia visit was “not about changing the status quo in Taiwan or the region.”
‘keep calm’
Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Friday that the island’s military had dispatched aircraft and ships and deployed land-based missile systems to monitor ships and aircraft that briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait midline.
On Thursday, China fired several missiles into the waters around Taiwan.
Japan’s defense ministry, which is monitoring the exercise, was the first to report that four missiles flew over the Taiwanese capital, unprecedented. It also said that five of the nine missiles fired at its territory landed in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the first that prompted a diplomatic protest by Tokyo.
Later, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the missiles were high in the atmosphere and posed no threat.
Some Taipei residents, including Mayor Ko Wen-jae, criticized the government for not raising a missile alert, but a security expert said it could have been done to provoke panic and avoid playing into China’s hands.
“It counteracted the effects of the Chinese Communist Party’s psychological warfare,” said Mei Fu-Xin, a US-based analyst.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said in a Facebook post urging residents not to panic: “Please rest easy, keep calm and live normally.”
Bonnie Glaser, a Washington-based Asia security expert at the United States’ German Marshall Fund, said China could be rehearsing for a blockade, “demonstrating it could block Taiwan’s ports and airports and halt shipping.” “
Taiwan has been self-governing since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists in a civil war, prompting the KMT-led government to retreat to the island. was inspired to.
Beijing has said that its relations with Taiwan are an internal matter, and it reserves the right to bring Taiwan under Chinese control if necessary.