Nancy Pelosi's Arrival: China Holds Military Exercises, Including Missile Tests, Around Taiwan In Six Zones From Today To Sunday

JAKARTA - China is expected to begin an unprecedented series of gun-play drills that would effectively blockade the island of Taiwan, just hours after the departure of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose controversial visit this week has sparked fears of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Pelosi's flight took an indirect route from Kuala Lumpur, making a detour through Indonesia and the Philippines, avoiding the South China Sea, to fly to Taiwan. There are concerns that China might send PLA aircraft to intercept or trail its aircraft into Taiwanese airspace.

Taiwan has flagged the drills, which will run from Thursday to Sunday afternoon, and will include missile tests and other "military operations" as close as nine miles to Taiwan's coastline - as a violation of international law.

Ahead of the drills, it said 27 Chinese warplanes had entered its air defense zone.

Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei on Tuesday night under intense global surveillance. She spoke in Taiwan's parliament on Wednesday before holding public and private meetings with the president, Tsai Ing-wen.

"Our delegation came to Taiwan to make it clear that we will not leave Taiwan, and we are proud of our enduring friendship," Pelosi said on Wednesday when she was presented with Taiwan's highest civilian award by President Tsai.

She said US solidarity with Taiwan was "essential" in the face of an increasingly authoritarian China. In a later statement, she said China could not prevent world leaders from traveling to Taiwan "out of respect for a thriving democracy".

As Pelosi's plane took off from Songshan airport late Wednesday, Taiwan faced days of military activity that threatened to escalate into a fourth Taiwan strait crisis.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry has accused Beijing of plotting to violate international conventions on the law of the sea, by violating Taiwan's sovereign territory.

Meanwhile, China's military regularly conducts live-fire drills in the strait and surrounding seas, planned this week to surround Taiwan's main island and target areas within its territorial sea.

Veerle Nouwens, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, said the location of the six exclusion zones was noteworthy.

"Specifically, the exclusion zone appears to no longer focus on China's coastline, but rather surrounds Taiwan," she said, adding that China has different interpretations of which law applies to what it considers its own maritime zone.

Taiwanese authorities say the proximity to several major ports, combined with orders for all aircraft and ships to avoid the area, constitutes a blockade.

Beijing's latest drills are being followed by Taiwan, the United States, and other regional powers, Nouwens said.

"The US will seek the use of PLA (People's Liberation Army) conventional missiles in their inventory, for example, will China test anti-ship ballistic missiles or use air-launched and ship-launched ASBM variants?"

"They will also pay attention to the type of exercise, for example, whether, how often, and how far the PLA crossed the median line, which they did today across the median line."

"Eventually, they will also seek to gain a better understanding of the PLA's coordination between air and sea forces, especially considering the various scenarios they have highlighted that they will undertake."

Across the region, there is a growing sense of uncertainty, with the exercise also irritating regional neighbors. Japanese analysts say the drills in the north are also a clear warning to their government about islands over which Tokyo and Beijing both claim ownership.

"The plan shows that the Sakishima Islands, including Yonaguni, Ishigaki, and Miyako, could be affected by the People's Liberation Army operations because they perceive the PLA as operating east of Taiwan," Tetsuo Kotani, a professor of global studies at Meikai University, told the Japan Times.

China's ruling Communist Party government, which regards Taiwan as its territory even though it has never ruled the island, has repeatedly warned of retaliation for the visit.