Image source, REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

China's military drills around Taiwan are a "disproportionate, significant and unjustified escalation", US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.

China has responded to top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan by holding days of military drills around the island.

There's "no possible justification for what they have done", Blinken said at the Asean regional forum.

Image source, Reuters

We've heard lots of reaction to China's military drills - but the "general atmosphere" in Taiwan "is still quite measured", according to one Taiwanese reporter.

Tingting Liu, a foreign affairs and military correspondent at local broadcaster TVBS in Taipei, says people are looking at the developments "with caution - but not excessive fear".

Asked by the BBC's Newsday radio programme whether this meant people in the country were not fazed by the drills, she said it was more a case that people felt "there isn't really much they can do here, except to just sit and observe".

But she did also acknowledge that the move by China – to send aircraft over the Taiwan Strait – risks compromising the "balance" that has been "maintained over the past two or three decades".

Jean Mackenzie
BBC News, Seoul

South Korea’s reaction to escalating Taiwan tensions, and to Speaker Pelosi’s trip, has been muted and a little clumsy.

Why? The government here wants to strengthen its relationship with the United States, a long-time ally, which it needs to defend it in the event of a conflict.

But it has another major consideration: China, its biggest trade partner.

This leaves it caught in the middle, wobbling on a precarious tightrope.

When Pelosi touched down in Seoul, straight off the back of her Taiwan stop, there was no-one from the South Korean government to greet her, and no plans for the President to meet her, making it the only country on Pelosi’s tour where she wouldn’t meet the leader.

It was because he was on holiday, we were told - albeit a staycation.

But when this excuse didn’t hold, the President’s Office admitted the decision had been made after considering national interests.

After some back-and-forth President Yoon agreed to a phone call with Pelosi - perhaps a way to keep both the US and China on his side.

But this tightrope is getting tricker to walk. The greater the tension between China and the US, the greater the pressure on South Korea, and other smaller countries in this region, to pick a side.

Image source, REUTERS/Aly Song

If you're just joining us, it's mid-afternoon in Taiwan and here's what's been happening:

• China is holding a second day of its biggest-ever military drills around Taiwan
• Multiple Chinese vessels and aircraft have crossed the median line for a second day, Taiwan's defence ministry says - this is the informal dividing line in the Taiwan Strait between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan
• China's military drills follow top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to the island
• Speaking in Japan, Pelosi has vowed China "will not isolate" Taiwan by preventing US politicians from travelling there
• Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu has told the BBC the island "is not going to be the last piece in [the] Chinese dream of expansionism"

As we reported earlier, Taiwan's defence ministry said today that "multiple" Chinese vessels and aircraft had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line for the second day in a row.

A Taiwan source briefed on the matter has now told Reuters that about 10 Chinese navy ships crossed the median line and remained in the area on Friday morning, and about 20 Chinese military aircraft also briefly crossed it.

Taiwan's navy ships are staying close to monitor Chinese navy activities, the source added.

The median line is the informal dividing line between mainland China and Taiwan.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said China "will not isolate" Taiwan by preventing US politicians from travelling there.

Responding to Chinese anger at her visit, she says "they are not doing our travel schedule".

Pelosi made her comments from the US embassy in Tokyo, as she visits Japan for the last stage of her Asian tour.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC News, Taiwan

Image source, Getty Images

"Taiwan is not going to be the last piece in [the] Chinese dream of expansionism," the island's foreign minister Joseph Wu told the BBC in an exclusive interview.

"The international community and countries in this region need to watch out for what China is trying to do."

He also reiterated that Taiwan would like to maintain the "status quo" - that is, remain a self-ruled island with its own democratic processes, but without declaring itself to be an independent country.

China, however, claims the island as a part of its territory.

"China’s behaviour is highly provocative, and is threatening regional peace and stability. It's disrupting international trade and international transportation," Mr Wu said, referring to the hundreds of ships and planes that have had to be re-routed because of Chinese military drills since Thursday noon.

He welcomed US House of Representatives' Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei, which has spiked tensions with China.

"For important leaders like Speaker Pelosi to have the opportunity to visit Taiwan is very significant - to raise the profile of Taiwan... to allow the international community to understand that Taiwan is a democracy," he told the BBC.

Condemning China's effective "blockade" of the seas around Taiwan, he said the island "holds the key to economic development, particularly in the high-tech arena".

"Many people have started to think that they cannot afford for Taiwan to be taken over by China. Every machine or important product these days needs computer chips - they come from Taiwan.

"Without this industry the international economy is going to suffer."

Chinese jets were flying above the mainland's Pingtan island - which lies across the Taiwan Strait from northern Taiwan and is one of the closest points on the mainland to the island.

Photographs show the jets are armed with missiles.

Tourists on the island were spotting the jets using binoculars.

China also launched missiles around Taiwan from Pingtan Island on Thursday.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Japan wants the "immediate cancellation" of China's military drills, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.

Speaking to reporters after meeting top US politician Nancy Pelosi for breakfast on Friday, Kishida said the military exercises were a "serious problem that impacts our national security and the safety of our citizens".

"I told [Pelosi] that we have called for the immediate cancellation of the military drills," he said.

Japan's defence ministry said on Thursday that five Chinese missiles that were fired that day fell into the country's exclusive economic zone - although China says the waters in this particular area east of Taiwan have not been delineated.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, Taiwan

To China, US Speaker Pelosi's trip to the island was anything but normal. To Beijing it is an outrageous breach of diplomatic norms.

When President Jimmy Carter recognised the People's Republic of China in 1979, Washington agreed it would drop recognition of the "other" Chinese government in Taipei.

For Beijing, that should have been the end of the story. But America never completely gave up on Taiwan. And as this island has transformed from a military dictatorship to a flourishing democracy, the sense that the US should protect this "plucky little democracy" in the face of China's threats has only grown.

Stephen McDonell, Beijing

Everyone's public position on Taiwan is ridiculous. It's like a giant game of pretend which is becoming harder to maintain.

China pretends that Taiwan is currently part of its territory, even though the island collects its own taxes, votes in its own government, issues its own passports and has its own military.

The US pretends it is not treating Taiwan as an independent country, even though it sells it high-tech weapons and, occasionally, a high-ranking politician visits on what looks very much like an official trip.

It's apparent that it would take nothing for this flimsy show, designed to guarantee the status quo, to fall apart.

The danger for the world is that there are those in Beijing who would like to see it fall apart.

China has summoned the Japanese ambassador in Beijing as well as European diplomats in the country to protest statements issued by both the G7 and EU that criticised its military drills around Taiwan.

Vice minister Deng Li called the statements "erroneous" and objected to "wanton interference in China's internal affairs", the foreign ministry said on Friday.

On Thursday, China also cancelled a foreign ministers' meeting with Japan to protest the G7 statement, which urged Beijing not to "attempt to unilaterally change the status quo".

Image source, Getty Images

Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang has taken a stab at its "evil neighbour next door", as military drills kick off for a second day.

"(We) didn't expect that the evil neighbour next door will show off its power at our door and arbitrarily jeopardise the busiest waterways in the world with its military exercises," he told reporters, according to a Reuters report.

China yesterday launched ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan. Taiwan said the move, which stops ships and planes from using the space, violates its sovereignty and amounts to a blockade.

The military drills are set to continue until Sunday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a meeting with top Asian diplomats on Friday that China's reaction to Pelosi's visit was "flagrantly provocative", a Western official has told journalists.

China sought to intimidate not only Taiwan but its neighbours too, Blinken said at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia according to the Reuters report.

The US, meanwhile, seeks to calm waters and continues to stand by its allies and partners, he added.

Taiwan's military has deployed land-based missile systems and dispatched aircraft and ships to monitor the situation, its defence ministry says.

It comes as multiple Chinese vessels and aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line earlier this morning.

Taiwan's defence ministry reiterated its statement that it would heighten its combat readiness but would not ask for a war.

Barbara Plett Usher
State Department Correspondent, BBC News

Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has left Joe Biden with a serious headache as he tries to manage ties with America's biggest global rival.

The relationship between China and the United States was founded on deliberate ambiguity over Taiwan.

Maintaining the status quo - in which Beijing says Taiwan is part of China, Taiwan says it's independent, the US says it's not but treats it like an ally, and no one makes aggressive moves on their claims - has been the least-worst option of keeping a tenuous peace.

But the US House Speaker has shone a harsh spotlight on the contradictions of this arrangement - which had already become strained.

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Speculation has been mounting that China may have fired missiles over Taiwan for the first time.

Beijing fired 11 ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan's north-east and south-west coasts on Thursday, as part of its biggest ever military exercises in the region following Ms Pelosi's visit to the island.

Ballistic missiles are fired to an extremely high altitude and then follow an unpowered trajectory and gravity brings them onto their target.

There is no formal agreement on the altitude to which a territory's airspace extends, suggestions range from about 30km (19 miles) - the highest altitude at which aircraft fly - to 160km (100 miles).

Chinese state media reported on Friday that some of the missiles had flown over Taiwan. The military's Eastern Theater Command posted a TV interview where a professor at the National Defence University said that this was the first time a missile had crossed Taiwan.

However, there has been no official statement on this so far from either the Chinese or Taiwanese governments.

Japan's defence ministry first speculated that as many as four of the missiles flew over Taiwan. Five of them also landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone, its embassy in the US said.

Multiple Chinese vessels and aircraft have crossed the Taiwan Strait median line for a second day, Taiwan's defence ministry says.

The median line is the informal dividing line in the Taiwan Strait between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

Jean Mackenzie
BBC News, Seoul

Image source, EPA

Speaker Pelosi has commented on her trip to Taiwan for the first time since leaving. In a press conference, she reiterated many times that she wanted peace on the self-governing island, and for the status quo to continue.

But she accused China of trying to isolate Taiwan in many ways and said it could not prevent her and other US officials from visiting, noting that the Chinese government did not control their travel schedule.

Pelosi is the highest-level US politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years. But she dismissed the contention she was motivated more by cultivating her legacy than protecting Taiwan as "ridiculous". The trip wasn’t about her, she said: it was about celebrating Taiwan and its thriving democracy.

At a press conference in Tokyo, US House speaker Nancy Pelosi rubbished claims that her visit to Taiwan was more about her own legacy than helping the self-ruled island.

"That is a ridiculous contention," she said. “This isn’t about me, this is about Taiwan. This is about saying ‘let us celebrate Taiwan’.”

She visited Taiwan from Tuesday evening to Wednesday afternoon and has since been to South Korea and now Japan, having previously stopped in Singapore and Malaysia.

She also repeatedly stressed that she and the US Congress were not out to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

China was “probably using our visit as an excuse” to launch missiles during drills around Taiwan, she added.

Image source, EPA

It's just gone 12:00 in Taiwan and China is due to start its second day of military drills around the island. The drills follow top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan.

• Speaking in Japan, Pelosi has insisted her controversial visit to Taipei - in the face of warnings from Beijing - was not motivated by self-interest
• She also vowed that the US would not let China isolate Taiwan
• On Thursday China launched ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan's north-east and south-west coasts, Taiwan says
• The island says the move, which stops ships and planes from using the space, violates its sovereignty and amounts to a blockade
• Both the US and Taiwan have accused China of trying to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait
• China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary
• The US does not recognise Taiwan diplomatically, but has a strong relationship with it