China is planning a series of military drills in response to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Beijing has launched missiles over the island for the first time. The Chinese navy is positioning warships around the island, including its two aircraft carriers that have left port in the last few days. There are six zones surrounding the island where the Chinese defense ministry plans to conduct drills, some of which may overlap with Taiwan's territorial waters. The live-fire exercises will take place over the course of three days. Taiwan had to scramble fighter jets on Wednesday to respond to 27 Chinese military aircraft that flew through its air defense zone, a large area that includes Taiwan's airspace and extends over mainland China. The Taiwan Strait is 12 nautical miles from the shore and separates the island from mainland China.
It is rare for Beijing to cross the center line, but it has done it before, and has done it on several occasions since then.
China's moves are mostly bluster according to officials. There are indications that Beijing is planning more aggressive military actions. Bonnie Glaser is an East Asia analyst at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The missile launches and naval blockade of the island demonstrate the control of the Chinese mainland over the Taiwan question, according to Chinese state media.
The state-run Global Times reported that the drills will involve China's most sophisticated military equipment.
The Times claimed that the median line will cease to exist when the People's Liberation Army enters Taiwan's territorial waters.
The Chinese are looking to do something for the first time.
Beijing warned ships and aircraft not to enter the large areas of water surrounding Taiwan, which are large enough to suggest Beijing will launch cruise missiles during the drills.
The U.S. officials have downplayed the speaker's visit as nothing out of the ordinary. The U.S. will not engage in "saber-rattling" according to John Kirby.
Kirby said there was no reason for Beijing to use the visit to increase military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait.
The Pentagon has been silent, and officials say they are not expecting to move any U.S. aircraft or warships closer to the island. The aircraft carriers Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln are in the Pacific on a routine deployment.
The Navy's 7th Fleet, which operates in the Pacific, put out a number of pictures of flight operations on Wednesday. The phrase "Free and Open IndoPacific" is included in the tweet.
The defense ministry said on Wednesday that the exercises amounted to an effective blockade of the island. The ring around the island is formed by the strategic location of the closure zones outside of Taiwan's largest ports.
There will be a no-fly zone over major commercial routes during the week of August 4 and 7. Commercial shipping in and out of the island is affected by the closing.
The current situation is similar to the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis when China tested missiles around Taiwan. The naval might of China has grown over the past 25 years as the drills are closer to Taiwan.
Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain and a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute, said he expects Beijing to increase naval and air operations in and around Taiwan in the coming months ahead of the Party Congress in November.
Hendrix said that he expects a bumping or shouldering incident with the Chinese navy within the next year and that Pelosi's visit "represents a significant loss of face for Xi that he can ill afford ahead of his party congress."
If the need arises, there are multiple American ships in the region that could arrive near Taiwan within a day.
The U.S. tacitly acknowledges that Beijing's military capabilities dwarf what they were during the 1996 crisis because they kept hundreds of miles back. The role of China's two aircraft carriers in the exercises is not known, but both ships have left their ports and are at sea.
The size of their navy has tripled over the past couple of decades according to the Chief of Naval Operations. The U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on long-range detection and targeting anymore.
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