White House spokesman says Beijing has used Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei as ‘a pretext to increase provocative military activity’
The US House speaker was the highest-profile US official to visit
The drills began around noon local time on Thursday, and involved a “conventional missile firepower assault” in waters to the east of Taiwan, the Chinese military said. Taipei’s defence ministry said it had detected 22 Chinese fighter jets briefly crossing the Taiwan Strait’s “median line” during Thursday’s exercises.
Military analysts told Beijing’s state broadcaster CCTV that the goal was to practise a possible blockade of the island and contain its pro-independence forces. “I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity,” Blinken told ministers from the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations in Phnom Penh.
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