China 's Red Army will tomorrow surround Taiwan carrying out live-fire drills in a furious response to US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit.
Beijing is set to demonstrate its anger over her trip with its largest military drills in more than 25 years, which experts warned could be “seen as an act of war.”
As well as military activity in the surrounding waters, Beijing has also summoned the US ambassador and announced the suspension of several agricultural imports from Taiwan, which it says is part of China.
Some of its military activity, involving warplanes and ships, has already crossed into Taiwan’s territorial waters and air space - which Taipei has called a serious breach of international rules.
Pelosi, a defiant 82-year-old California Democrat and her delegation today flew out of Taiwan after a roughly 19-hour visit that was the first by a US House speaker since 1997.
Pelosi’s trip so enraged mainland China that the country’s most popular social media platform, Weibo, crashed for about 30 minutes, confirming it was overstretched as several hashtags racked up several billion views.
“This old she-devil, she actually dares to come,” popular blogger Xiaoyuantoutiao wrote, adding that they had gone to bed “so angry I could not sleep.”
It was nothing compared to the anger expressed by Chinese officials.
Even before Pelosi touched down, 21 Chinese fighter jets buzzed the imaginary line dividing the Taiwan Strait.
The People’s Liberation Army said it was on high alert and would launch “targeted military operations.”
After she landed, China announced that it would hold four days of “necessary and just” joint air and sea drills, the largest aimed at Taiwan since 1995.
Although much attention was on Pelosi’s visit, the real potential for a military showdown comes now she has left.
At least half of the six areas where the drills are planned to begin today appear to infringe on Taiwanese waters, according to Arthur Zhin-Sheng Wang, a defence studies expert at Taiwan’s Central Police University.
Using live fire in a country’s territorial airspace or waters “can possibly be seen as an act of war,” Wang warned.
Taiwanese Captain Jian-chang Yu said at a briefing by the National Defense Ministry: “Such an act equals to sealing off Taiwan by air and sea and severely violates our country’s territorial sovereignty.”
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen insisted the island of 23 million would not be cowed.
“Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down,” she said during her meeting with Pelosi.
“We will firmly uphold our nation’s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defence for democracy.”
China’s foreign ministry insisted: “In the current struggle surrounding Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, the United States are the provocateurs, China is the victim.”
During her day-long visit, Pelosi met with Taiwanese lawmakers and President Tsai offering strident assurances of US support for the island democracy.
“Today, the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” Pelosi said.
“America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.”
Today, the Kremlin said the level of tension provoked by Pelosi’s visit "should not be underestimated".
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss criticised China’s “inflammatory” response to Pelosi’s visit.
Speaking on a Conservative Party leadership campaign visit in Ludlow, Shropshire, the Tory leadership hopeful said: “I do not support China’s inflammatory language on this issue.
“It’s perfectly reasonable what is taking place, and I urge China to de-escalate.”
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns said the Chinese Communist Party has tried to make Ms Pelosi’s visit a “flashpoint”, telling BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “Because they’ve placed this enormous strategic importance on the visit when they could actually have just dismissed it out of hand as nothing more than a political stunt or a low-level delegation.
“But they’re choosing to use it to draw a line in the sand, and I think that shows how worried they are and how important this is for Xi Jinping as he attempts to reconsolidate his position going into the 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Ms Kearns confirmed the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, of which she is a member, intends to visit Taiwan later this year.
She said: “I think the reason for going, and it was me that suggested that we should visit as a Foreign Affairs Committee, is we visit allies all over the world, we also visit our friends, and we try to understand the biggest issues facing our country and also international security.”
