Taiwan Sounds Alarm Over China’s Attack Drills

Taiwan has issued a chilling assessment of China’s explosive military tests held around the island this week.

Taiwan said Saturday that China’s military drills appear to simulate an attack on the self-ruled island after multiple Chinese warships and aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan’s armed forces issued an alert, dispatched air and naval patrols around the island, and activated land-based missile systems in response to the Chinese exercises, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said. The island’s leadership also announced it detected four unmanned aerial vehicles flying in the vicinity of the offshore county of Kinmen on Friday night and fired warning flares in response.

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The four drones, which Taiwan believed were Chinese, were spotted over waters around the Kinmen island group and the nearby Lieyu Island and Beiding islet, according to Taiwan’s Kinmen Defense Command.

China’s military exercises have surrounded Taiwan, and are expected to last until Sunday.

The warning comes after Nancy Pelosi‘s historic visit to Taiwan earlier this week, during which she pledged America’s “unwavering commitment” to democracy.

In the wake of her visit, John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, told reporters Thursday that China is intentionally overreacting to escalate tensions and create a new “status quo” in the region.

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Kirby’s comments came after China launched 11 ballistic missiles toward Taiwan hours after Pelosi departed, which he called “irresponsible and at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region.”

“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,” he continued. “We anticipated that China might take steps like this.”

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Kirby specifically predicted that China would continue “boiling the frog” and escalating military action throughout the Taiwan Strait in the near future but reiterated that the “United States is prepared for what Beijing chooses to do.”

He added that while the U.S. will not seek a conflict, “we will not be deterred from operating in the seas and the skies of the Western Pacific consistent with international law, as we have for decades, supporting Taiwan, and defending a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Christian Datoc and the Associated Press contributed to this report.