WATCH: China conducts military drills in Taiwan Strait amid talks of Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei

New Delhi: China has on Saturday started conducting military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. This comes after Beijing warned Washington of severe consequences if US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan during her upcoming tour of Asia.

For the unversed, while US do not have any formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, if she travels to Taiwan, she would be the highest-ranking US elected official to visit the self-governing democratic island since 1997.

The US on its part has not clarified whether Pelosi will indeed travel to Taipei, but the issue was raised by Chinese president Xi Jinping during his virtual meeting with US president Joe Biden, earlier this week, where he ended the meet by warning Biden ‘not to play with fire’, according to several reports.

#Update: Just in - Another alleged video of the #PLA, shooting tracer rounds over the sea into the direction of #Taiwan, in a live fire exercise at the #Fujian province in #China. pic.twitter.com/ndstVRmRXN

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) July 30, 2022

Now, the Communist Party's military wing, the People's Liberation Army, has started conducting live-fire exercises near the Pingtan islands off Fujian province, the official Xinhua News Agency has said. However, the announcement has not disseminated any information on whether the drills would involve just artillery or also missiles, fighter planes and other weapons. Reports state that the Maritime Safety Administration has warned vessels to stay away from the area.

Amid the ongoing developments, a report in DW.com quoted Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London as saying that such rhetoric is a warning for both the US and China, as, "By increasing that kind of rhetoric, they are putting themselves in a situation that when Pelosi visits Taiwan, the Chinese military may have to take some actions which will require the Americans to respond, and that puts it on an escalatory path that nobody wants. It's not in anyone's interests."

#Update: Just in - Another video of the #PLA in the #Fujian province in #China, shooting flares on the sea, in a live fire exercise near #Taiwan. pic.twitter.com/E6AD5cD2aU

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) July 30, 2022

Tsang added that Pelosi should not have planned for this visit to begin with because it doesn't really add that much to Taiwan or US-Taiwan relations.

According to Tsang, "But now that she has said that she was going to go or indicate that she would go and the Chinese government has come out blackmailing the United States, it becomes very difficult for the United States government to back off under Chinese pressure, because doing so will create a moral hazard. So she may well end up having to go."

#Update: Just in - More videos of the #PLA in the #Fujian province in #China, firing MLRS rockets towards the sea in the direction of #Taiwan, in a live fire exercise. pic.twitter.com/1gWK2cL7mL

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) July 30, 2022

As per a report in Politico, if Pelosi does indeed try to land in Taipei, there are chances that her aircraft could be shot down by China’s People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) air force jets.

As per a report in News18, Chinese state media commentator and Global Times editor Hu Xijin in an editorial stated that if US fighter jets escort Pelosi into Taiwan, it is an invasion and the Chinese military has the right to dispel Pelosi's plane and the US fighter jets, including warning shots, and if ineffective, shoot them down. The tweet, however, was later removed due to violation of Twitter rules.

With inputs from agencies

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