Taiwan, and China war

Chinese military drills circling Taiwan set up a potential standoff. Through citrus, sand and fish, China sends an economic message to Taiwan. 'This is ...

Beijing had resisted his plan to visit the island directly after China, he said, so officials in Washington and Beijing “worked out a deal” in which he would first travel from China to Japan before heading to Taiwan. They portrayed Ms. Pelosi’s trip as part of a systematic effort by the United States to “use Taiwan to contain China” and sabotage Beijing’s efforts at unification with the island. “You have to stand up the Chinese communists or they will interpret it as a sign of weakness, and they’ll grow even more aggressive,” he said. North Korea called the trip “imprudent interference” and said it was “arousing serious concern of the international community,” according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. In Australia, the foreign minister, Penny Wong, urged “all parties” to de-escalate tensions and appeared to signal that China and the United States should try to calm things down. “Such a move, betting on and in contempt for the well-being of more than 20 million people in Taiwan, is extremely selfish.” It said Mr. Yang had long advocated Taiwan’s independence and sought to promote Taiwan as a country to join the United Nations. Ms. Hung had spent hours at the airport on Tuesday night, hoping to “see Pelosi with my own eyes,” and was now trying to catch a glimpse of her again — so far, in vain. “I believe this is the beginning of a changing U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan.” Biden administration officials have said Ms. Pelosi’s visit is not the first of its kind and does not mean a shift in policy over China and Taiwan. “In view of the brutal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, it is important to make it clear that the international community does not accept such behavior.” “America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), left, poses with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen at the president's office on Wednesday in Taipei, Taiwan. Handout/Getty ...

And certainly, some people have pointed out that any amount of military intimidation is not good and becoming accustomed to living under that sword is not necessarily healthy for Taiwan in the long run. I think they think this is the U.S. using all its little levers to do sneaky things that add up to a policy of creeping support toward Taiwan, permanent separation from the mainland. I don’t think the Beijing government wants a war with anybody at this moment — for precisely the reasons that were laid out earlier in this conversation. And I just think there’s a lot of good reasons not to gratuitously undermine Taiwan’s security and the relationship between the PRC and the United States. I think that would be hard to believe for people from many political backgrounds in a parliamentary system; it’s inconceivable that there would be that kind of daylight between the executive and legislative functions in government; but from the PRC perspective, it’s just laughable. SR: Yes. And it doesn’t matter to China. And that I think is the most important thing. You can talk to people in the State Department, in the intelligence community, in the Defense Department who have a range of views about things, and it’s possible that they talk to people in Congress outside the chain of command, which would not be fantastic, but they probably do. But I think what the Beijing leadership was trying to do in the run-up to this visit was to prevent it. Now they have got to show that they really meant it, that this is not just posturing in the hope of maybe influencing something around the margins. I read something yesterday that I thought was really interesting, that this whole Taiwan brouhaha that has been front and center in the U.S. for several days has not really been front-page news in the PRC domestic media. If the Beijing leadership decided that this visit by Nancy Pelosi was a big step forward in that trend, they wanted to draw a line here. In the end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was brief — she spent 24 hours on the island — but it was historic and controversial, and its implications may be felt for a long time.

China plans to escalate its military exercises near Taiwan, prompting fears of a fresh crisis in the region.

Yet some experts say Xi’s response to Pelosi’s visit is likely to be as much about domestic issues in China as it is about asserting power. Taiwan has never been part of the People’s Republic of China and says it is already a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence. There have been several crises in the Taiwan Strait, most recently in 1995. According to Justin Bassi, executive director for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China’s military exercises will probably be calibrated to avoid escalation from the US. China flexed its military muscle with months of military drills, including firing missiles 35 miles from Taiwan’s ports. Ahead of the exercises, which are due to begin on Thursday, Taiwan said 27 Chinese warplanes had entered its air defence zone.

State media frame military exercises in six areas around self-ruled island as war plan rehearsal.

“There is no justification to use a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait,” a statement from the G7’s foreign ministers’ said. Beijing had threatened “serious consequences” if she went ahead with the visit. “It is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel internationally. “We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and to drive them away. “If the conventional missiles of the PLA were to be launched from the mainland toward the west of Taiwan and hit targets to its east, this means that the missiles would fly over the island, which is unprecedented,” the paper quoted another Chinese mainland military expert Zhang Xuefeng as saying. On Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense described China’s military activities as “irrational” and with the “intention of changing the status quo and undermining regional peace and stability”.

China's largest-ever military exercises encircling Taiwan kicked off Thursday, in a show of force straddling vital international shipping lanes after a ...

"China's announced military exercises represent a clear escalation from the existing baseline of Chinese military activities around Taiwan and from the last Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995-1996," said Amanda Hsiao, senior analyst for China at the International Crisis Group. A Chinese military source also told AFP the exercises would be staged "in preparation for actual combat". The Group of Seven industrialised nations has condemned the drills, saying in a statement there was "no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait". "The Ministry of National Defence stresses that it will uphold the principle of preparing for war without seeking war, and with an attitude of not escalating conflict and causing disputes," it said in a statement. It sparked a furious reaction from Beijing, which vowed "punishment" and announced military drills in the seas around Taiwan -- some of the world's busiest waterways. Pelosi was the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, and said her trip made it "unequivocally clear" that the United States would not abandon a democratic ally.

China said its armed forces have launched joint military exercises on an unprecedented scale in six areas ringing Taiwan on Thursday as Beijing seeks to ...

Combat exercises begin around island after Nancy Pelosi visit, in what Taiwan has said amounts to blockade.

“There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan strait,” it said. In a statement it warned the situation could lead to “serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers”. I’m sure that ...the Taiwanese population will again become favourable of the reunification, and will become patriots again.” “We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and to drive them away,” Maj Gen Chang Zone-sung of the army’s Kinmen defence command told Reuters. “The national army will continue to strengthen its alert, and troops at all levels will conduct daily training.” Taiwan’s defence ministry has accused China of in effect mounting a blockade with the actions.