China said Friday that more than 100 warplanes and 10 warships have taken part in live-fire military drills surrounding Taiwan over the past two days, while announcing sanctions on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her visit to the self-governing island earlier this week. The official Xinhua News Agency said Friday that fighters, bombers, destroyers and frigates were all used in what it called “joint blockage operations” taking place in six zones off the coast of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. The military’s Eastern Theater Command also fired new versions of missiles it said hit unidentified targets in the Taiwan Strait “with precision.” Those included projectiles fired over Taiwan into the Pacific, military officers told state media, in a major ratcheting up of China’s threats to annex the island by force. The drills, which Xinhua described as being held on an “unprecedented scale," are China's response to a visit this week by Pelosi to Taiwan. She is the highest ranking U.S. politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years. China announced unspecified sanctions on Pelosi and her family. Such sanctions are generally mostly symbolic in nature. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said that Pelosi had disregarded China’s serious concerns and resolute opposition to her visit. It called Pelosi’s visit provocative and said it undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. China opposes Taiwan having its own engagements with foreign governments. On the Chinese coast across from Taiwan, tourists gathered Friday to try to catch a glimpse of any military aircraft heading toward the exercise area. Fighter jets could be heard flying overhead and tourists taking photos chanted, “Let’s take Taiwan back," looking out into the blue waters of the Taiwan Strait from Pingtan island, a popular scenic spot. China's insistence that Taiwan is its territory and threat to use force to bring it under its control has featured highly in ruling Communist Party propaganda, the education system and the entirely state-controlled media for the more than seven decades since the sides divided amid civil war in 1949. Island residents overwhelmingly favor maintaining the status quo of de facto independence and reject China's demands that Taiwan unify with the mainland under Communist control. On Friday morning, China sent military ships and war planes across the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said, crossing what had for decades been an unofficial buffer zone between China and Taiwan. Five of the missiles fired by China since the military exercises began Thursday landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan’s main islands, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said. He said Japan protested the missile landings to China as “serious threats to Japan’s national security and the safety of the Japanese people.” Japan's Defense Ministry later said they believe the other four missiles, fired from China’s southeastern coast of Fujian, flew over Taiwan. Read: China cannot stop US officials from visiting Taiwan: Pelosi Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday that China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan represent a “grave problem” that threatens regional peace and security. In Tokyo, where Pelosi is winding up her Asia trip, she said China cannot stop U.S. officials from visiting Taiwan. Speaking after breakfast with Pelosi and her congressional delegation, Kishida said the missile launches need to be “stopped immediately.” China said it summoned European diplomats in the country to protest statements issued by the Group of Seven nations and the European Union criticizing threatening Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan. The Foreign Ministry on Friday said Vice Minister Deng Li made “solemn representations” over what he called “wanton interference in China’s internal affairs.” Deng said China would “prevent the country from splitting with the strongest determination, using all means and at any cost.” “Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is a blatant political manipulation and a blatant and serious violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," Deng said. “In response to the U.S.-Taiwan collusion and provocation, China’s counterattack is only natural." China's Foreign Ministry said the meeting was held Thursday night but gave no information on which countries participated. Earlier Thursday, China canceled a foreign ministers’ meeting with Japan to protest the G-7 statement that there was no justification for the exercises. Both ministers were attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia. China had earlier summoned U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns to protest Pelosi's visit. The speaker left Taiwan on Wednesday after meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and holding other public events. She traveled on to South Korea and then Japan. Both countries host U.S. military bases and could be drawn into a conflict involving Taiwan. The Chinese exercises involve troops from the navy, air force, rocket force, strategic support force and logistic support force, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. They are believed to be the largest held near Taiwan in geographical terms, with Beijing announcing six exercise zones surrounding the island. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the drills Thursday saying, “I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity. We countries around the world believe that escalation serves no one and could have unintended consequences that serve no one’s interests.” U.S. law requires the government to treat threats to Taiwan, including blockades, as matters of “grave concern.” The drills are due to run from Thursday to Sunday and include missile strikes on targets in the seas north and south of the island in an echo of the last major Chinese military drills aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s leaders and voters held in 1995 and 1996. Taiwan has put its military on alert and staged civil defense drills, but the overall mood remained calm on Friday. Flights have been canceled or diverted and fishermen have remained in port to avoid the Chinese drills. In the northern port of Keelung, Lu Chuan-hsiong, 63, was enjoying his morning swim Thursday, saying he wasn’t worried. “Everyone should want money, not bullets,” Lu said.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China, which quickly announced that it would conduct military maneuvers in retaliation for her presence. Pelosi arrived aboard a U.S. Air Force passenger jet and was greeted on the tarmac at Taipei’s international airport by Taiwan’s foreign minister and other Taiwanese and American officials. She posed for photos before her motorcade whisked her unseen into the parking garage of a hotel. Her visit has ratcheted up tension between China and the United States because China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and it views visits by foreign government officials as recognition of the island’s sovereignty. In a statement issued just after her arrival, Pelosi said the visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” The Biden administration did not explicitly urge Pelosi to call off her plans. It repeatedly and publicly assured Beijing that the visit would not signal any change in U.S. policy on Taiwan. Soon after Pelosi’s arrival, China announced a series of military operations and drills, which followed promises of “resolute and strong measures” if Pelosi went through with her visit. The People’s Liberation Army said the maneuvers would take place starting Tuesday night in the waters and skies near Taiwan and include the firing of long-range ammunition in the Taiwan Strait. “This action is a solemn deterrent against the recent major escalation of the negative actions of the United States on the Taiwan issue, and a serious warning to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces seeking ‘independence.’” Read: Pelosi believed headed to Taiwan, raising tension with China China’s official Xinhua News said the army planned to conduct live-fire drills from Aug. 4 to 7 across multiple locations. In an image the news agency released, the drills were to take place in six different areas in the waters surrounding Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Washington’s betrayal “on the Taiwan issue is bankrupting its national credibility.” “Some American politicians are playing with fire on the issue of Taiwan,” Wang said in a statement. “This will definitely not have a good outcome ... the exposure of America’s bullying face again shows it as the world’s biggest saboteur of peace.” Back in the United States, 26 Republican lawmakers issued a statement of rare bipartisan support for the Democratic speaker. The statement called trips by members of Congress to Taiwan routine. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he backed Pelosi’s visit as a display of support for Taiwan’s democracy and said any allegations that her itinerary was provocative are “utterly absurd.” “I believe she has every right to go,” McConnell said in a Senate speech. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry had declined to comment on whether Pelosi would visit. The trip was not officially announced ahead of time. The speaker has sought for decades to focus attention on Chinese democracy movements. She traveled to Tiananmen Square in 1991, two years after China crushed a wave of democracy protests. Barricades were erected outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei. Journalists and onlookers thronged the streets just outside and pressed against the hotel’s lobby windows as they awaited Pelosi’s motorcade. Two buildings in the capital lit up LED displays with words of welcome, including the iconic Taipei 101 building, which said “Welcome to Taiwan, Speaker Pelosi.” China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province to be annexed by force if necessary, repeatedly warned of retaliation, saying its military will “never sit idly by.” “The U.S. and Taiwan have colluded to make provocations first, and China has only been compelled to act out of self-defense,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing. Shortly after Pelosi’s arrival, a representative of the Chinese legislature’s Standing Committee issued a statement saying the trip “severely violated” the “One China principle,” which is Beijing’s claim to be the sole government of both mainland China and Taiwan. China’s military threats have driven concerns about a new crisis in the 100-mile-wide (140-kilometer) Taiwan Strait that could roil global markets and supply chains. The White House on Monday decried Beijing’s rhetoric, saying the U.S. has no interest in deepening tensions with China and “will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling.” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby underscored that the decision about whether to visit Taiwan was ultimately Pelosi’s. Kirby said administration officials are concerned that Beijing could use the visit as an excuse to take provocative retaliatory steps, including military action. “Put simply, there is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with longstanding U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait,” Kirby said. U.S. officials have said the American military will increase its movements in the Indo-Pacific region during Pelosi’s visit. The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were in the Philippine Sea on Monday, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. The Reagan, the cruiser USS Antietam and the destroyer USS Higgins left Singapore after a port visit and moved north to their home port in Japan. The carrier has an array of aircraft, including F/A-18 fighter jets and helicopters, on board as well as sophisticated radar systems and other weapons. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said early Wednesday that China had sent 21 planes flying toward Taiwan, 18 of them fighter jets. The rest included an early warning plane and an electronic warfare plane. Taiwan and China split in 1949 after the Communists won a civil war on the mainland. The U.S. maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan even as it recognizes Beijing as the government of China. Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. leaders say they don’t support. Pelosi, head of one of three branches of the U.S. government, is the highest-ranking elected American official to visit Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. The flight tracking site Flightradar24 said Pelosi’s aircraft, an Air Force version of the Boeing 737, was the most tracked in the world on Tuesday evening with 300,000 viewers. The plane took a roundabout route, flying east over Indonesia rather than directly over the South China Sea. Pelosi has used her position to be an emissary for the U.S. on the global stage. She has long challenged China on human rights, including in 2009, when she hand-delivered a letter to then-President Hu Jintao calling for the release of political prisoners. She had sought to visit Taiwan’s island democracy earlier this year before testing positive for COVID-19. China has been steadily ratcheting up diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan. China cut off all contact with Taiwan’s government in 2016 after President Tsai Ing-wen refused to endorse its claim that the island and mainland together make up a single Chinese nation, with the Communist regime in Beijing being the sole legitimate government. Pelosi kicked off her Asian tour Monday in Singapore. She is to travel to Japan and South Korea later this week.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused the Trump administration of messing with the health of children by their risky push to fully reopen schools amid global coronavirus pandemic.   “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' aggressive push to fully reopen schools this fall is "malfeasance and dereliction of duty," said the house speaker on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, reports AXIOS.   "We all want our children to go back to school. Teachers do, parents do and children do. But they must go back safely," she said.   "And when we hear what the administration is saying, we know they have no appreciation for the failure that has brought us to this point. Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus. They ignore science and they ignore governance in order to make this happen," said Pelosi.   "If there are CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines, they should be requirements. But most importantly, and I hope the Republicans will join us, we have to call upon the president to implement the Defense Protection Act so that we can have the PPE, the personal protective equipment, as well as the testing equipment and equipment to evaluate the tests."   Trump has demanded that schools reopen as part of his efforts to juice the economy by allowing parents to return to work, despite caution from health officials that little is known about how the virus impacts children.   Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told "Fox News Sunday" that public schools that don't reopen in the fall should not get federal funds, and that the money should be redirected to families who can use it to find another option for their children.   The Trump administration is engaged in a full-court press to reopen schools this fall, despite warnings from some public health officials that the coronavirus outbreak is out of control in many states and that it will be difficult for many schools to reopen safely.   The hard-hit US has registered 3,302,665 confirmed coronavirus cases.   Besides, so far 135,176 fatalities have been recorded in the country till Monday morning, according to data of John Hopkins University.