China fired ballistic missiles and deployed fighter jets Thursday as it held its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan, a show of force condemned by Washington as a gross overreaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
PINGTAN, China —
“China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters. Tokyo has lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing over the exercises, with Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi saying five of the missiles were believed to have landed in his country’s exclusive economic zone.
“In the face of this blatant provocation, we have to take legitimate and necessary countermeasures to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing Thursday. “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 Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh.Speaking at the same meeting, Japan’s foreign minister called for an “immediate stop” to China’s military drills near Taiwan.
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