A day after the United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan late on Tuesday, 2 August, Taipei has alleged that a total of 27 Chinese warplanes flew into Taiwan's air defence zone on Wednesday, reported AFP.
The Defence Ministry tweeted, “27 PLA aircraft... entered the surrounding area of (Republic of China) on August 3, 2022.”
Responding to the allegations, China said that they were "necessary and just" military drills in the seas just off Taiwan's coast, some of the world's busiest waterways.
Beijing's foreign ministry said,
"In the current struggle surrounding Pelosi's Taiwan visit, the United States are the provocateurs, China is the victim."
However, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said that the island will not back down despite facing “deliberately heightened military threats.”
"Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down. We will... continue to hold the line of defence for democracy," Tsai said at an event with Pelosi in Taipei.
Nancy Pelosi is the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
The last time such a high-ranking US official visited Taiwan was in 1997 when then House Speaker Newt Gingrich had visited the island nation.
G7 Nations Condemn China's Military Drills
Meanwhile, the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations on Wednesday condemned China’s military drills around Taiwan and added that there is no ‘justification’ for ‘aggressive military activity’.
The G7 foreign ministers said in a statement, "There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait" and China's "escalatory response risks increasing tensions and destabilising the region."
(With inputs from AFP.)
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