China held military drills in the Taiwan Strait ahead of Pelosi’s visit to Asia

China held live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepared to arrive in Asia.

As Bloomberg reports, the drills took place off the coast of Fujian province across from Taiwan. A warning issued by the local maritime security agency said the high schools would be held near Pingtan, a county about 130 kilometers from the city of Hsinchu across the strait in northwestern Taiwan. It was the first live-fire exercise announced by the agency in at least a year.

Pelosi said Friday that she is “very excited” about the prospect of an upcoming trip to Asia, while declining to confirm any part of her schedule, including whether she will visit Taiwan. Reports that her trip would include a stop in Taiwan had sparked an angry reaction in China, which considers the self-ruled island part of its territory.

Beijing has warned there will be consequences if Pelosi visits Taiwan, including a Defense Department statement that hinted China could use military force in response. She was scheduled to depart Friday, according to people familiar with her plans.

“Mainland China will definitely put up a strong fight to the end to thwart Pelosi’s Taiwan visit without fearing any escalation,” Hu Shijin, a commentator and former editor-in-chief of the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper, said in an editorial. of in the edition. The US and Taiwan “must fully understand that the red line is a high voltage line that they cannot step on,” he said.

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan at length on Thursday in a phone call that lasted more than two hours.

Neither side said in their statements whether Pelosi’s possible stop in Taiwan was mentioned. But a person familiar with the discussion said Xi made it clear to Biden how much of a problem it would be for Pelosi to visit Taiwan, and Biden made it clear to Xi that Pelosi makes her own decisions as president and cannot control another industry. of the goverment.

China has expressed clear concern about a possible visit by Pelosi to Taiwan, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told reporters on Friday.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday that the US has no “physical, tangible evidence” that China is preparing a military response to a possible visit by Pelosi to Taiwan.

“We have no concrete indication that anything is happening militarily from the Chinese side,” Kirby told reporters Friday on a conference call.

He also said there was no need for “belligerent rhetoric” coming from Chinese officials because “there has been no change in American policy on Taiwan.”

Pelosi’s trip will include stops in Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, as well as possibly Malaysia, according to a person familiar with the plans. However, it remains unclear whether she will put Taiwan on her schedule.

Other members of Congress in both parties are encouraging Pelosi to make a stop on Taiwan, saying avoiding the island after China’s protests would amount to acquiescing to Beijing.

Pelosi said Friday that Biden talked about putting a big emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region, “and we want the United States Congress to be part of that initiative.”