BEIJING (Reuters) -China will hold three days of military exercises around Taiwan starting from Saturday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command announced, the day after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a trip to the United States.
China will hold “combat readiness patrols” and exercises around in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of Taiwan “as planned”, it added in a brief statement without offering other details.
Tsai met U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while in Los Angeles in Wednesday, angering Beijing which views Taiwan as its own territory.
There was no immediate response from Taiwan’s government.
China had threatened unspecified retaliation if the meeting took place, having staged war games around Taiwan including live fire missile launches in August after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Taiwanese officials had expected a less severe reaction to the McCarthy meeting given it took place in the United States, but nonetheless had also said they could not rule out the possibility of China staging more drills.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Writing and additionl reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; editing by Diane Craft)
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