Beijing/Taipei, August 5 : China on Friday announced it launched missiles into Taiwan for the first time, increasing tensions in the region as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Japan and Japan’s leaders filed a complaint with Beijing following the fact that five missiles hit the Japanese islands.Pelosi had a meeting with Japanese PM Fumio Kishida on Friday morning, with their attention focused on the Taiwan Strait, where China is holding sea and air drills in protest of the US Speaker’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week, CNN reported.
China has launched missiles into the waters around Taiwan -an island with a democratic constitution of 24 million people that is considered by the Chinese Communist Party regards as its territory, even though it has never ruled it — particularly in the Taiwan Strait Crisis in the 1990s.
But the missiles that flew over the island signaled an important increase, with US officials warning that there could be more to be seen, CNN reported.
“We believed that China could take actions similar to this -“In fact, I described them for you a couple of days ago.in fact, I’ve discussed them to you in very specific terms just the last week,” John Kirby, an official spokesperson of the US National Security Council, told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
“We also believe that this trend will persist, and we expect that the Chinese will continue to respond in the days ahead.”
A US aircraft carrier will remain in the region in the vicinity of Taiwan for a few days more to “monitor the situation”, Kirby added.
In a speech in Tokyo Friday evening, Pelosi claimed that China of seeking “to displace Taiwan” and pointing out Taiwan’s exclusion from organizations like the World Health Organization.
China began military exercises around Taiwan on Thursday.It fired a variety of missiles at waters around the northeastern and southwestern regions of Taiwan the day following Pelosi’s departure.
A Chinese military expert confirmed to state-owned broadcaster CCTV that conventional missiles flew over Taiwan’s largest island, which includes airspace that is occupied by Taiwanese missiles for defense, CNN reported.
“We successfully hit the targets under the surveillance of US Aegis combat system which means that the Chinese military has solved the problem of hitting targets that are long-range on the ocean,” said Maj.Gen.Meng Xiangqing, a professor of strategy at the National Defence University in Beijing.
In a statement issued late Thursday night, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said the missiles were above the atmosphere, and thus did not pose a threat for Taiwan, CNN reported.
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