It's just gone 20:00 in Taipei, and we're pausing our coverage. Here's a recap of today's developments:

• China has launched several Dongfeng ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan's northeast and southwest coasts
• China's foreign minister called Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan a "manic, irresponsible and highly irrational"

• Delays to global shipping and disruption to supply chains are expected as commercial ships were forced to reroute
• More than 50 international flights to and from Taiwan have been cancelled
• Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council says China is trying to force the international community to stop supporting the island
• Our correspondent in Taipei has said life there is going on as normal, and people are calm but concerned

Today's coverage was brought to you by Thomas Spender, Yvette Tan, Melissa Zhu, Aoife Walsh and Tiffany Wertheimer.

Barbara Plett Usher
State Department Correspondent, BBC News

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is emphasising that any crisis over Taiwan will be one of Chinese making.

“I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretence to increase its aggressive military action," he said at the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

He also repeated that US policy towards Taiwan hasn’t changed, despite the high-level visit to the island by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

As China conducts aggressive military drills near Taiwan’s shore, the view in Washington is still that President Xi Jinping aims to “calibrate” his response so as not to ignite open warfare, which neither side wants.

But it’s an explosive development in a brittle relationship.

“The US and China don't have either the political space or really the relationships and the mechanisms to prevent an incident like that from becoming a full-blown crisis,” says Danny Russel of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

BBC Monitoring

It may surprise you, but on China's prime time news show Xinwen Lianbo, these military drills weren't the top story.

The influential news programme, which is thought to follow the Chinese Communist Party's priorities, led with a political story about President Xi Jinping.

On other outlets, however, the drills were reported very prominently.

Another Chinese news programme, CCTV-13's 6pm bulletin led with them, showing a video of the long-range missile live fire, and then announcing that the drill was “successfully completed”.

On China’s tightly censored, Twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo, CCTV aired a live programme, external with international relations scholars and military experts analysing the drills.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC News, Taiwan

The objective of these tests by China is clearly intimidation toward Taiwan.

But it is also causing massive disruption to Taiwan's shipping and airline industries. The waters around Taiwan are some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. And all those ships are now having to re-route.

On the north coast of Taiwan, in the fishing port of Bi Sha Yu, fishermen sitting on the port side were fixing their nets and grumbling loudly: "It's always us little people who suffer when the politicians fight."

"But what can we do, it's too dangerous to go out there now," said one captain.

Most people the BBC spoke to do not believe China is about to attack Taiwan. "They're a bunch of gangsters," said one man fishing on the dockside.

"Those communists talk big, but they won't do anything. We've been living with their threats for 70 years."

But this is just day one, and there is still plenty of time for China to ramp things up.

Read more here.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

China is expressing its anger at Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan with missiles and with words.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi described her stop on the island as "manic, irresponsible and irrational".

At a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers, Wang said his country had done all it could to avoid a crisis but that it could "not allow its core interests to be hurt".

He also said that Taiwan would "eventually return to the embrace of the motherland" - a reference to China's position that the island is part of its territory.

Read the full story here.

Chinese State TV has broadcast footage from the military drills around Taiwan.

Pictures featuring fighter jets, war ships and land-based weapons have been shown.

And here's a map to remind you where and how close these drills are happening to the island. As you can see, some of the areas encroach into Taiwan's maritime border.

China "imitated" North Korea by firing missiles into waters near the island, Taiwan's foreign ministry has said.

The ministry has also called for self-restraint amid high tensions with Beijing.

In a statement, it says China has threatened Taiwan's security and urged countries to support the democratic island and jointly defend freedom and democracy.

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

Today’s ballistic missile launches, combined with aggressive military drills close to Taiwan’s shores are the starkest reminder yet that China is prepared to use force if necessary to claim Taiwan by 2049.

It could even be seen as something of a dress rehearsal for future moves to effectively strangle the island, which it considers "a renegade province", persuading it by sheer force of arms to give up its dreams of independence and come under Beijing’s rule, without a single casualty.

China does not want to invade Taiwan - it would be hugely costly in blood, treasure and its global reputation - but it wants to show it is prepared to do so if Taiwan will not submit peacefully.

The presence nearby of the US Navy’s powerful 7th fleet no longer holds the deterrent it used to.

China has invested heavily in hypersonic missiles, such as the Dongfeng, some of which are designed to send an aircraft carrier to the bottom of the sea.

Taiwan has belatedly been beefing up its own defences, installing advanced state-of-the-art missile detection systems on its highest mountains as well as hiding its most modern fighter jets in underground bunkers on the east coast.

The current tension will likely subside, but it will not be the last.

Footage coming in from Pingtan Island shows helicopters and smoke trails in the sky, as people watch the military drills above them.

The military drills around Taiwan have forced ships to reroute in one of the world's busiest waterways.

Almost half of the global container fleet and 88% of the world’s largest ships passed through the Taiwan Strait this year, according to Bloomberg.

The days-long disruptions are expected to have an impact on supply chains and result in delays to global shipping.

Image source, Getty Images

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which it has vowed to retake, by force if necessary.

But Taiwan's leaders say it is clearly much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state.It has its own constitution, democratically-elected leaders, and about 300,000 active troops in its armed forces.

Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China(ROC) government, which fled the mainland to Taiwan in 1949, at first claimed to represent the whole of China, which it intended to re-occupy.

It held China's seat on the United Nations Security Council and was recognised by many Western nations as the only Chinese government.

But in 1971, the UN switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing and the ROC government was forced out. Since then the number of countries that recognise the ROC government diplomatically has fallen drastically to about 15.

Given the huge divide between these two positions, most other countries seem happy to accept the current ambiguity, whereby Taiwan has virtually all of the characteristics of an independent state, even if its legal status remains unclear.

Read more here

We reported earlier that Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said the island would be on alert for "psychological warfare".

We're hearing more from the council now.

The use of military force won't solve problems and differences, they say, adding that the drills will not change the fact that the two sides don't belong to each other, according to a Reuters report.

A meeting between China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart has been cancelled over a statement released by the G7 about Taiwan, the Chinese foreign ministry says.

The foreign ministers of G7 nations - including Japan - had called on China on Wednesday to resolve tension around the Taiwan Strait in a peaceful manner.

Speaking at a media briefing, Hua Chunying, a spokesperson at the ministry, said Beijing was strongly displeased with the statement.

Image source, Getty Images

Taiwan will be on alert for "infiltration and psychological warfare", Reuters quoted the island's Mainland Affairs Council as saying on Thursday.

The council said it thinks China is attempting to isolate Taiwan and force the international community to stop supporting the island, said the report.

It also called for China's Communist Party to "immediately stop intimidating Taiwan".

Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport said on Wednesday that more than 50 international flights have been cancelled on Thursday due to China's live-fire drills.

These included 26 arriving flights to Taiwan, and 25 flights departing from Taoyuan airport.

Korean Air has also cancelled flights from Incheon to Taiwan on Friday and Saturday, while Asiana Airlines cancelled its direct flight to Taiwan on Friday and will monitor the situation, South Korean media reported on Thursday.

Image source, Reuters

If you're just joining us now, here's what you need to know to bring you up to speed:

• China has launched several Dongfeng ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan's northeast and southwest coasts
• Taiwan's Defence Ministry said it had activated related defence systems in response to the launch, according to a Reuters report
• China's live fire drills began at 12:00 local time (04:00 GMT) and are set to end on Sunday
• Our correspondent in Taipei says life there is going on as normal, and people are calm but concerned
• The US Navy is sending an aircraft carrier towards Taiwan, in what it says are "normal, scheduled operations" in the Philippine Sea

China is building up its armed forces at a rapid pace, most recently with the launch of a new aircraft carrier.

Many Western observers now believe a profound shift in the global balance of military power is under way.

President Xi Jinping has ordered China's armed forces to modernise by 2035. They should, he says, become a "world-class" military power, capable of "fighting and winning wars" by 2049.

Read more

The US Navy says the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier is heading towards a stretch of ocean that includes waters southeast of Taiwan.

"USS Ronald Reagan and her strike group are under way in the Philippine Sea continuing normal, scheduled operations as part of her routine patrol in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific," a navy spokesperson said on Thursday.

Image source, Reuters

The Rocket Force of the Eastern Theater Command carried out a conventional missile launch off the eastern coast of Taiwan, Chinese state media has said, adding that it hit the target with precision.