For all the latest coverage of the Taiwan crisis please read our most recent live blog in the link below.
Updated
Summary
Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage.
We will be launching a new blog shortly. In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below.
- China is to begin its second day of unprecedented live-fire drills after launching huge military exercises in the air and seas around Taiwan on Thursday, including firing ballistic missiles close to the island some of which landed in Japanese waters.
- The exercises, which included rockets, attack helicopters and gunships, were arranged in reaction to a defiant visit to the island by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Wednesday.
- The US condemned the missile launches. “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 said.
- Kirby also warned of the risk of a mistake and calculation of the drills, saying, “One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict.”
- US secretary of state Antony Blinken said he “hopes very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretence to increase its aggressive military action”.
- Foreign ministers from the 10-member Asean bloc, meeting in Cambodia this week, called for “maximum restraint”, without mentioning the US or China by name. In a statement it said the situation could lead to “serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers”.
- Japan said at least five of the 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles fell into its exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from Japan’s coast.
- Japan also speculated that four missiles flew over Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city, according to a statement issued by its US embassy.
- Taiwan’s defence ministry said the missiles flew high into the atmosphere and constituted no threat to the island.
- Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen, urged Beijing to “act with reason and exercise restraint” while maintaining Taiwan would not escalate conflict but would “resolutely defend our sovereignty, our security & our democracy”.
- Foreign governments and multilateral groups including the G7 and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) condemned the hostilities and called for calm.
- The drills were in unprecedented proximity to Taiwan, and included PLA warplane and navy vessel incursions over the median line of the Taiwan strait – an unofficial border between China and Taiwan.
- Notices of the exercises identified six areas encircling Taiwan, with warnings for all ships and aircraft to “not enter the relevant sea areas and airspace”. On Thursday, local media reported the last-minute announcement of a seventh. Some of the zones overlap with Taiwan’s territorial waters, and are near key shipping ports.
-
Several cyber-attacks also struck Taiwan, targeting websites of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry and the presidential office.
- Beijing’s Taiwan affairs office said the dispute was an internal affair. “Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces, is reasonable, lawful,” it said.
Updated
