Taipei - (AFP) - Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed Wednesday that her country "will not back down" in the face of the threat of China , which announced the organization of dangerous military exercises near the coast of the island in response to the visit of Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

During a meeting with Tsai in Taipei, Pelosi said that she came out of "friendship towards Taiwan" and for "peace in the region," stressing at the same time that the United States will not abandon its commitments to the democratic island that lives under constant Chinese threat of invasion.

"Today our delegation (...) came to Taiwan to say unequivocally that we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan and that we are proud of our enduring friendship," Pelosi said, the most senior US official to visit the island in 25 years.

The US official arrived in Taipei on Tuesday evening in a US military plane, which immediately sparked sharp reactions in Beijing.
China declared the military exercises "necessary and legitimate".

"In the current conflict surrounding Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, the United States is the instigator, China is the victim. The joint provocation of the United States and Taiwan came first, followed by China's defense," said the State Department in Beijing.

However, the president of Taiwan said that her country of 23 million people will not back down. "We will continue (...) to defend democracy," she said during her meeting with Pelosi.

She thanked the 82-year-old US official for "taking concrete steps to show her unwavering support for Taiwan at this crucial moment."

Before leaving Taiwan, Pelosi met many of the dissidents who have suffered their share of China's wrath, including the leader of the Tiananmen student protests, Wuer Kaishi.

"We totally agree that Taiwan is on the front lines (of democracy)," Kaishi said.

Pelosi's delegation left Taiwan on Wednesday night for South Korea, her next stop on an Asian tour. Later, she will head to Japan.

After its departure, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense announced late Wednesday that 27 Chinese warplanes had entered the island's Air Defense Identification Area (ADIS).

Over the past two years, Beijing has increased its military sorties in the Taiwanese "Adiz" region.

The ministry released a map showing that 16 Su-30s and six J-11s crossed the so-called "demarcation line" of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial border in the narrow waterway that separates the island from mainland China and includes vital shipping lanes. .

Chinese planes crossed the "dividing line" during two high-level visits by US officials in 2020 during Donald Trump's presidency.

The Chinese government summoned US Ambassador Nicholas Burns on Tuesday night. Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng expressed his country's "firm protests" over the visit.

"The initiative (Pelosi's visit to Taiwan) is very shocking and the consequences will be very serious," he said, according to the Xinhua news agency.

For its part, the Chinese Ministry of Defense promised "targeted military actions" through a series of military maneuvers around the island starting Wednesday, including "firing long-range live ammunition" in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from mainland China.

The coordinates published by the Chinese army indicate that part of the military operations will take place at a distance of twenty kilometers from the coast of Taiwan.

A spokesman for the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, Sun Lifang, said, "Some areas of the Chinese exercises overlap (...) with the territorial waters of Taiwan." "This is an irrational act aimed at challenging the international order," he added.

However, a source in the Chinese army told AFP that the exercises would take place "in preparation for actual combat."

"If the Taiwanese forces deliberately came into contact with the (Chinese) People's Liberation Army and fired by mistake, the People's Liberation Army will take firm countermeasures, and the Taiwanese side will bear the consequences," the source warned.

As for Japan, it said it was "concerned" about the Chinese exercises, noting that some of them would violate its exclusive economic zone.

South Korea, for its part, called for calm.

For their part, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries saw, on Wednesday, that there was "no justification" for China to use Pelosi's visit as a "pretext" for conducting military maneuvers.

"It is normal for deputies of our countries to pay international visits. (China's) escalatory response is liable to increase tension and destabilize the region," the ministers of the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom added in a statement.

On Wednesday, China announced the suspension of importing some types of fruits and fish from Taiwan and exporting natural sand to the island.
A number of US ships are in the region, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, according to US military sources.

Most observers consider the possibility of armed conflict to be small.

China considers Taiwan one of its provinces that it has not succeeded in annexing to the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War (1949).
US officials visit the island regularly. But China sees Pelosi's visit as a major provocation.

And last week, in a phone conversation with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the United States not to "play with fire."

Since 1979, Washington has recognized only one Chinese government, the Beijing government, but it has continued to provide support to the Taiwanese authorities, especially through large arms sales.

The United States also practices a policy of "strategic ambiguity" as it refrains from saying whether it will defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an invasion.

Russia, China's main ally, accused the Americans on Tuesday of "destabilizing the world" and described Nancy Pelosi's visit as a "sheer provocation".

North Korea, another ally of Beijing, expressed its "full support".