China suspends climate change, military ties with US over Pelosi visit to Taiwan

BEIJING — China Friday, US this week Cancel or suspend dialogue with the United States on issues ranging from climate change to military ties to anti-drug efforts in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

The move, which comes at a time of souring relations between Beijing and Washington, has been accused of allowing visits to islands that the United States claims are part of its territory. , the latest in a series of promised measures meant to punish the United States. Combine by force if necessary. On Thursday, China launched threatening military exercises in six zones just off Taiwan's coast, which are said to last until Sunday.

A missile was also launched over Taiwan, a defense official told state media. Although China opposes autonomous islands having independent contacts with foreign governments, China's reaction to President Pelosi's visit has been unusually tumultuous.

The Foreign Office said talks between US and Chinese regional commanders and Pentagon officials would be canceled, along with discussions on military maritime safety.

The ministry said it would suspend cooperation on illegal immigration repatriation, criminal investigations, international crime, illegal drugs and climate change.

China said on Friday that more than 100 fighter jets and more than 10 of his warships had taken part in live-fire military exercises around Taiwan over the past two days, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his announced largely symbolic sanctions against the family. She visited Taiwan earlier this week.

Fighters, bombers, destroyers and frigates were all used in a "joint blockade operation," the state-run Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

The military's Eastern Theater Command also launched a new version of the missile that it said hit an unidentified target in the Taiwan Strait "precisely."

Rocket Force also launched projectiles into the Pacific Ocean over Taiwan, military officers told state media.

The drill, described by Xinhua as being on an "unprecedented scale", is China's harshest response to Pelosi's visit. The speaker is the highest-ranking US politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years.

Dialogue and exchanges between China and the United States, especially military issues and economic exchanges, have come to a standstill at best. But combating climate change and the trafficking of illicit drugs such as fentanyl are areas where they have found common cause, and Beijing's cessation of cooperation is critical to efforts to achieve progress on these issues. can affect.

China and the United States are the world's No. 1 and No. 2 climate polluters, and together account for nearly 40% of her total fossil fuel emissions. Their top climate diplomats, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, maintained a friendly relationship that dates back to the Paris Agreement, made possible by a breakthrough negotiated between the two.

At the United Nations Global Climate Summit in Glasgow last year, China pledged to "urgently" cooperate with the United States to reduce climate-damaging emissions, at Kerry's urging. But Kerry was unable to persuade China to significantly accelerate its withdrawal from coal.

On the coast of China opposite Taiwan, tourists flocked on Friday to catch a glimpse of military planes heading to the training grounds.

Hearing fighter jets flying overhead and watching the blue waters of the Taiwan Strait from the popular scenic spot of Pingtan Island, he shouted, "Let's take Taiwan back!" Tourists taking pictures were shouting. in Fujian province.

Mr. Pelosi's visit stirred sentiment among the Chinese public, and the government's response "made the homeland feel so powerful that Taiwan's return was an irresistible trend." They will give it to you," said Wang Lu, a tourist from China. neighboring Zhejiang province.

China "is a powerful country and does not allow anyone to encroach on its territory," said Liu Bolin, a high school student who visited the island.

His mother, Zheng Zhidan, was somewhat cautious.

"We are compatriots and want to live in peace," she said Zheng. "We must live in peace with each other."

China's claim to Taiwan as its territory and the use of force to bring it under its control China's threat to wield its power is featured heavily in the dominant Communist Party propaganda, the education system, and the wholly state-controlled media. More than 70 years after the civil war of 1949 divided both sides.

Taiwanese residents overwhelmingly support maintaining the status quo of de facto independence, rejecting China's demands to unify the island with the mainland under communist rule.

On Friday morning, China sent warships and fighter jets across the Taiwan Strait midline, Taiwan's defense ministry said, marking the first unofficial exchange between China and Taiwan for decades. crossed what had been a buffer zone for

Since military exercises began on Thursday, five of the missiles launched by China have hit Japan's exclusive economic zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan's main island. said Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi. He said Japan protested the missile landing in China as a "serious threat to Japan's national security and the safety of the Japanese people."

Japan's defense ministry later said it believed four other missiles, launched from China's southeast coast in Fujian province, passed over Taiwan.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Friday that China's military drills targeting Taiwan were a "grave problem" threatening peace and security in the region.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China's actions were in line with "international law and practice," but offered no evidence.

"Regarding the exclusive economic zone, China and Japan have not implemented maritime demarcation in the relevant waters, so there is no such thing as Japan's EEZ," the Daily Briefing.

In Tokyo, where Pelosi ended her trip to Asia, she said China could not stop US officials from visiting Taiwan. Kishida met with Pelosi and a congressional delegation after breakfast and said the missile launches had to be "immediately stopped."

China said it had summoned European diplomats in the country to protest statements by her G7 and her EU criticizing China's military exercises around Taiwan.

On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry said Vice Minister Deng Li had made a "solemn statement" over what he called "vicious interference in China's internal affairs."

Deng said that China will "use all possible means, at all costs, with the strongest determination to prevent the country from splitting up."

The ministry said the meeting was held on Thursday night, but did not provide information on which countries had attended. Earlier Thursday, China canceled a foreign ministers' meeting with Japan, protesting her G7 statement that the exercises were unjustified.

Both ministers were present at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia.

China is facilitating the foreign support it has received for its response to Pelosi's visit, primarily from fellow authoritarian states such as Russia, Syria and North Korea.

China previously summoned US Ambassador Nicholas Burns to protest Mr Pelosi's visit. The speaker left Taiwan on Wednesday after holding a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and other public events. She continued her journey to South Korea and then to Japan. Both countries host US military bases and could be embroiled in conflict involving Taiwan.

China's exercises involve forces from the navy, air force, rocket force, strategic support force, and logistic support force, according to Xinhua.

They are geographically the largest near Taiwan, and are believed to be the closest to him within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the island.

US Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said on Friday he called the drill a "grave escalation" and urged Beijing to withdraw.

US law requires the government to treat threats to Taiwan, including blockades, as matters of "serious concern."

This exercise mirrors China's last major military exercises in 1995 and 1996 aimed at intimidating Taiwan's leaders and voters.

Taiwan put its military on alert and held civil defense drills, but the overall mood on Friday remained calm. Flights have been canceled or diverted and fishermen are staying in ports to avoid Chinese drills.

In the northern port of Keelung, 63-year-old Riku Chuanyu enjoyed a Thursday morning swim, saying he had no concerns.

"People want money, not bullets," Lou said.