China aircraft and ships ‘carried out attack drills’; senior Taiwan military researcher found dead in hotel – live | Taiwan

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that China should not hold talks on important global matters such as the climate crisis “hostage,” after Beijing cut off contacts with Washington in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week.

Blinken spoke in an online news conference with his Philippine counterpart in Manila after meeting newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and other top officials, as relations between Washington and Beijing plummeted to their worst level in years, reports Associated Press.

The US Secretary of State said:

We should not hold hostage cooperation on matters of global concern because of differences between our two countries.

Others are rightly expecting us to continue to work on issues that matter to the lives and livelihood of their people as well as our own.

He added that co-operation on climate change with China is vital and that shutting down contact on the issue “doesn’t punish the United States it punishes the world.”

The world’s largest carbon emitter is now refusing to engage on combatting the climate crisis.

Our China affairs correspondent Vincent Ni reports:

Relations between the world’s two largest economies have plummeted into further uncertainty as China halted ties with the US on a range of critical issues – from talks on the climate crisis to dialogue between their militaries – following the visit to Taiwan earlier this week by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

The declaration of the series of “countermeasures” came as Beijing for a second day staged massive military drills surrounding the island of Taiwan and also announced sanctions against Pelosi and her direct family members for what it called her “vicious and provocative actions”.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had scrambled jets to warn away 49 Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone on Friday and a total of 68 Chinese military aircraft and 13 navy ships had conducted missions. The foreign ministry in Taipei also reported it had detected “massive” number of cyberattacks attempts against its website throughout Thursday and on Friday morning.

Read more of Vincent Ni’s piece here: China halts US cooperation on range of issues after Pelosi’s Taiwan visit

The Taiwan official who was found dead in his hotel room on Saturday morning (see 5.52am) died of a heart attack, according to official media reports cited by Reuters.

Authorities said there was no sign that anyone had broken into his room.

Ou Yang Li-hsing was deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, where he supervised various missile production projects. He was 57.

Here’s a summary of the latest developments as it passes 2pm in Taipei.

• Taiwan’s defence ministry has accused Chinese aircraft and ships of carrying out simulation attack exercises on its main island on Saturday. Several batches of Chinese aircraft and ships were detected in the Taiwan Strait, some of which crossed the median line, an unofficial buffer separating the two sides, according to the ministry. Taiwan’s army used patrolling naval ships and put shore-based missiles on stand-by in response.
• A Taiwan official who was in charge of various missile production projects was found dead on Saturday morning in a hotel room in Southern Taiwan, according to the official Central News Agency. Ou Yang Li-hsing, deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, was 57. The cause of his death is unknown, CNA reported.
• The US, Australian and Japanese foreign ministers have urged China to immediately cease military exercises around Taiwan. In a joint statement after meeting in Phnom Penh on the margins of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ gathering, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the foreign ministers of Australia and Japan, Penny Wong and Hayashi Yoshimasa, “expressed their concern about the People’s Republic of China’s recent actions that gravely affect international peace and stability, including the use of large-scale military exercises”. They also “condemned the PRC’s launch of ballistic missiles, five of which the Japanese government reported landed in its exclusive economic zones, raising tension and destabilising the region”.
• Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said Chinese military drills near Taiwan, were a threat to regional security. Beijing announced four days of drills that are expected to finish on Sunday. The drills are a “serious problem that impacts our national security and the safety of our citizens,” Kishida told reporters, speaking after a meeting with the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in Tokyo on Friday.
• North Korea has denounced Nancy Pelosi as “the worst destroyer of international peace and stability”, after the US House speaker expressed her commitment during a visit to South Korea to achieving the North’s denuclearisation. It also condemned her trip to Taiwan.
• The US special envoy on climate change John Kerry said China’s decision to suspend bilateral talks on climate change with the US does not punish Washington, “it punishes the world”. “No country should withhold progress on existential transnational issues because of bilateral differences,” said the former US secretary of state, who is currently the Biden administration’s top climate diplomat. US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, also told reporters that China’s decision to halt cooperation in a number of critical areas was “fundamentally irresponsible”.

The deputy head of Taiwan defence ministry’s research and development unit has been found dead in a hotel in Pingtung, southern Taiwan, according to the official Central News Agency.

Ou Yang Li-hsing, deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, was 57. The cause of his death is unknown, CNA reported.

Ou Yang, who was in charge of various missile production projects, had been on a business trip to Pingtung.

The military-owned body is working to more than double its yearly missile production capacity to close to 500 this year, as the island boosts its combat power amid what it sees as China’s growing military threat, according to Reuters.

Taiwan’s defence ministry has said that some Chinese aircraft and ships carried out simulation attack exercises towards the main Taiwan Island on Saturday, Reuters senior correspondent in Taipei Yimou Lee has tweeted.

Several batches of Chinese aircraft and ships were detected in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday morning, some of which crossed the median line, they report.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Taiwan crisis. Here’s a summary of the latest developments as it passes 10.30am in Taipei.

• The US, Australian and Japanese foreign ministers have urged China to immediately cease military exercises around Taiwan. In a joint statement after meeting in Phnom Penh on the margins of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ gathering, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the foreign ministers of Australia and Japan, Penny Wong and Hayashi Yoshimasa, “expressed their concern about the People’s Republic of China’s recent actions that gravely affect international peace and stability, including the use of large-scale military exercises”. They also “condemned the PRC’s launch of ballistic missiles, five of which the Japanese government reported landed in its exclusive economic zones, raising tension and destabilising the region”.
• The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, walked out of a plenary session in Cambodia just as Japan’s top diplomat, Yoshimasa Hayashi, spoke on Friday. Wang called a rare news conference late on Friday, where he accused the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, of spreading misinformation. He called Nancy Pelosi’s trip a “contemptible farce” and stressed China’s military response to it was “firm, forceful and appropriate”.
• The US special envoy on climate change John Kerry said China’s decision to suspend bilateral talks on climate change with the US does not punish Washington, “it punishes the world”. “No country should withhold progress on existential transnational issues because of bilateral differences,” said the former US secretary of state, who is currently the Biden administration’s top climate diplomat. US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, also told reporters that China’s decision to halt cooperation in a number of critical areas was “fundamentally irresponsible”.
• Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said Chinese military drills near Taiwan, were a threat to regional security. Beijing announced four days of drills that are expected to finish on Sunday. The drills are a “serious problem that impacts our national security and the safety of our citizens,” Kishida told reporters, speaking after a meeting with the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in Tokyo on Friday.
• Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Friday the island’s military had dispatched aircraft and ships and deployed land-based missile systems to monitor ships and aircraft that briefly crossed the Taiwan strait median line. On Thursday, China fired multiple missiles into waters surrounding Taiwan. The defence ministry later said the missiles were high in the atmosphere and posed no threat. It gave no details of their flight paths, citing intelligence concerns. Taiwan also said it scrambled jets on Friday to warn away 49 Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone, according to Reuters. All 49 Chinese aircraft crossed the Taiwan strait median line, the ministry said in a statement.
• North Korea has denounced Nancy Pelosi as “the worst destroyer of international peace and stability”, after the US House speaker expressed her commitment during a visit to South Korea to achieving the North’s denuclearisation.
• China has “historically been a victim of foreign aggression”, its foreign ministry spokesperson said. In a series of tweets on Friday, Hua Chunying said: “China had historically been a victim of foreign aggression. Today, the US still grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs and attempts to undermine China’s sovereignty and security from time to time.”