China-Taiwan news – latest: US calls Beijing’s reaction ‘flagrantly provocative’ – Up Jobs News

China’s firing of missiles into waters less than 160km (100 miles) from Japan in a display of might after Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan will likely bolster public support for a military build-up aimed at defence against Japan’s big neighbour.

“It clearly shows that if anything happened with Taiwan that we will be affected,” said Taro Kono, a senior ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and former foreign and defence minister.

“The tide has clearly turned in Japan,” he added, when asked whether the public would back higher military spending.

Defence is a divisive issue in Japan, which, as a legacy of World War Two, has a pacifist constitution and an enduring public wariness about entanglement in US-led wars.

China’s unprecedented missile launches into Japan’s exclusive economic zone came as prime minister Fumio Kishida’s government prepares to publish a defence budget request for a significant increase in spending this month.

“The military balance has greatly changed around Taiwan,” said retired admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, who served as chief of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces’ Joint Staff for five years until 2019.

“I hope defence budget discussions will get serious.”

China has announced unspecified sanctions on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit earlier this week to Taiwan.

A Chinese foreign ministry statement said today that Ms Pelosi had disregarded China’s concerns and resolute opposition to her visit to the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims.

The Chinese statement called Ms Pelosi’s visit provocative and said it undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It said that sanctions would be imposed on her and her immediate family but did not say what they would be. Such sanctions are generally mostly symbolic in nature.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken joined the foreign ministers of Russia and China at a meeting today with top diplomats from Southeast Asia at a time when the global powers are riven by tensions.

The East Asia Summit of the ongoing Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Cambodia’s capital was the first time the three men were scheduled to take part in the same forum.

It came a day after WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to nine years in prison by Russia in a politically charged case amid antagonisms over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

China, meantime, has shown outrage over US House speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s visit this week to Taiwan — a self-governing island Beijing claims as its own — and launched show-of-force military exercises in response.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi patted Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the shoulder as he entered the room and gave the already-seated Lavrov a quick wave before taking his own seat. Lavrov waved back in response.

Mr Blinken, who entered the room last, did not even glance at Lavrov as he took his own seat about a half-dozen chairs away, or at Wang who was seated farther down the same table as Mr Lavrov.

Ahead of the Phnom Penh talks, the US State Department indicated Mr Blinken had no plans to meet one-on-one with either man during the course of the meetings.

As Nancy Pelosi wrapped her Asia trip, she called on “the two big countries” — the US and China — to communicate in areas such as climate and other global issues.

“It isn’t about our visit determining what the US-China relationship is. It’s a much bigger and longer-term challenge and once again, we have to recognize that we have to work together on certain areas.”

China will not isolate Taiwan by preventing US officials from travelling there, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today in Tokyo as she wrapped up her Asia tour highlighted by a visit to Taipei that infuriated China.

The Chinese have tried to isolate Taiwan, Ms Pelosi said, including most recently by preventing the self-governing island from joining the World Health Organization.

Ms Pelosi called the contention “ridiculous” and said that her trip to Taiwan was not intended to change the status quo for the island but to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait.

“Our friendship with Taiwan is a strong one. It is bipartisan in the House and in the Senate, overwhelming support for peace and the status quo in Taiwan,” she said.

US Secretary of State slammed China’s military exercises saying there is no justification for Beijing’s “extreme disproportionate and escalatory” response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

He said that China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan including missiles fired into Japan’s exclusive economic zone represent a “significant escalation.”

“China has chosen to overreact and use Speaker Pelosi‘s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” Mr Blinken said at a news conference in the Cambodian capital.

He also said the US stands in “strong solidarity” with Japan following the “dangerous actions China has taken.”

About 10 Chinese navy ships and 20 military aircraft briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line on Friday morning, a Taiwan source briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Around 10 Chinese navy ships crossed the median line and remained in the area on Friday morning, and about 20 Chinese military aircraft briefly crossed the median line, said the person, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Earlier, Taiwan’s defence ministry said the island’s military has dispatched aircraft and ships and deployed land-based missile systems to monitor the situation there, as China conducts large-scale military drills in zones surrounding Taiwan.

Claiming that China’s relationship with Taiwan is an internal matter, the Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said “the US-Taiwan collusion and provocation will only push Taiwan towards the abyss of disaster, bringing catastrophe to Taiwan compatriots”.

China’s vice minister Deng Li said Beijing would “prevent the country from splitting with the strongest determination, using all means and at any cost.”

“Pelosi‘s visit to Taiwan is a blatant political manipulation and a blatant and serious violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Deng said. “In response to the US-Taiwan collusion and provocation, China’s counterattack is only natural.”

Responding to the Chinese drills, president Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not provoke conflicts but would firmly defend its sovereignty and national security.

Taiwan condemned its “evil neighbour” today after China fired multiple missiles into its surrounding waters, as many as four of which flew over the island’s capital Taipei in an unprecedented escalation during live-fire exercises.

China launched its largest ever military drills in the seas and skies around Taiwan on Thursday, a day after US House speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged Beijing by making a solidarity trip to the self-ruled island that China claims as its own.

Later, Taiwan’s defence ministry said the missiles were high in the atmosphere and constituted no threat. It did not give details of their flight paths, citing intelligence concerns.

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Taiwan, pledged US solidarity and said her trip through Asia, which led to unprecedented military drills by an angry China, was never about changing the regional status quo.

“We have said from the start that our representation here is not about changing the status quo in Taiwan or the region,” she told a news conference after meeting with Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida.

“The Chinese government is not pleased that our friendship with Taiwan is a strong one,” she added.

“It is bipartisan in the House and in the Senate, overwhelming support for peace and the status quo in Taiwan.”

Ms Pelosi also lauded Taiwan’s democracy, economic successes and – in a veiled dig at China – its human rights record, noting support by Taiwan, the first Asian government to allow same-sex marriage, for LGBTQ rights.