More than 100 warplanes and 10 warships have taken part in live-fire military drills encircling Taiwan over the past two days, China said Friday, while announcing sanctions on U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her visit to the self-ruled island earlier this week.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Friday that fighters, bombers, destroyers and frigates were all used in what it called "joint blockage operations" taking place in six zones off the coast of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
The military’s Eastern Theater Command also fired new versions of missiles it said hit unidentified targets in the Taiwan Strait "with precision."
Those included projectiles fired over Taiwan into the Pacific, military officers told state media, in a major ratcheting up of China’s threats to annex the island by force.
The drills, which Xinhua described as being held on an "unprecedented scale," are China's response to a visit this week by Pelosi to Taiwan. She is the highest ranking U.S. politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
China announced unspecified sanctions on Pelosi and her family. Such sanctions are generally mostly symbolic in nature.
"Despite China's serious concerns and firm opposition, Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan, seriously interfering in China's internal affairs, undermining China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, trampling on the one-China policy, and threatening the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait," a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
China opposes Taiwan having its own engagements with foreign governments.
On the Chinese coast across from Taiwan, tourists gathered Friday to try to catch a glimpse of any military aircraft heading toward the exercise area.
Fighter jets could be heard flying overhead and tourists taking photos chanted, "Let’s take Taiwan back," looking out into the blue waters of the Taiwan Strait from Pingtan island, a popular scenic spot.
China's insistence that Taiwan is its territory and threat to use force to bring it under its control has featured highly in ruling Communist Party propaganda, the education system and the entirely state-controlled media for the more than seven decades since the sides divided amid civil war in 1949.
Island residents overwhelmingly favor maintaining the status quo of de facto independence and reject China's demands that Taiwan unify with the mainland under Communist control.
On Friday morning, China sent military ships and warplanes across the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said, crossing what had for decades been an unofficial buffer zone between China and Taiwan.
In Tokyo, where Pelosi is winding up her Asia trip, she said China cannot stop U.S. officials from visiting Taiwan. Speaking after breakfast with Pelosi and her congressional delegation, Kishida said the missile launches need to be "stopped immediately."
China said it summoned European diplomats to the country to protest statements issued by the Group of Seven (G-7) nations and the European Union criticizing threatening Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan.
The Foreign Ministry on Friday said Vice Minister Deng Li made "solemn representations" over what he called "wanton interference in China’s internal affairs."
Deng said China 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 U.S.-Taiwan collusion and provocation, China’s counterattack is only natural."
China's Foreign Ministry said the meeting was held Thursday night but gave no information on which countries participated. Earlier Thursday, China canceled a foreign ministers’ meeting with Japan to protest the G-7 statement that there was no justification for the exercises.
Both ministers were attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia.
China had earlier summoned U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns to protest Pelosi's visit. The speaker left Taiwan on Wednesday after meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and holding other public events. She traveled on to South Korea and then Japan. Both countries host U.S. military bases and could be drawn into a conflict involving Taiwan.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the drills saying: "I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity. We countries around the world believe that escalation serves no one and could have unintended consequences that serve no one’s interests."
U.S. law requires the government to treat threats to Taiwan, including blockades, as matters of "grave concern."
The drills are due to run from Thursday to Sunday and include missile strikes on targets in the seas north and south of the island in an echo of the last major Chinese military drills aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s leaders and voters held in 1995 and 1996.
Taiwan has put its military on alert and staged civil defense drills, but the overall mood remained calm on Friday. Flights have been canceled or diverted and fishermen have remained in port to avoid the Chinese drills.