BEIJING — (AP) — China is staging live-fire military drills in six self-declared zones surrounding Taiwan in response to a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island Beijing claims as its own territory.
China has warned aircraft and ships to avoid the areas during the exercises, which run through Sunday. The drills appear to be a rehearsal for a potential blockade and invasion of the island that would almost certainly draw in Taiwan’s chief supporter, the United States, along with American allies including Japan and Australia.
China’s 2 million-strong military is the world’s largest and its navy has more ships than the U.S. Taiwan’s armed forces can’t compare in numbers, but it has vowed to resist coercive measures to impose Chinese Communist Party rule over the self-governing island democracy.
“It will take some hard diplomacy to reestablish a stable…
