China should not overreact to the visit to Taiwan by USHouse of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
"The visit of Nancy Pelosi is no reason for China to overreact or threaten Taiwan or to use threatening rhetoric," Stoltenberg told Reuters.
China fired multiple missiles near Taiwan on Thursday in its biggest ever military drills in the Taiwan Strait, a day after Pelosi's visit.
Five ballistic missiles fired by China appear to have landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Japanese defence minister Nobuo Kishi said on Thursday, part of military exercises launched by China earlier in the day.
The exercises, China's largest ever in the Taiwan Strait, began as scheduled at midday and included live-firing in the waters to the north, south and east of Taiwan, bringing tensions in the area to their highest in a quarter century.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers urged restraint Thursday as China launched massive military drills off Taiwan, warning the situation risked spiralling into "open conflicts".
A furious Beijing kicked off its biggest-ever exercises around Taiwan in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit this week to the self-ruled island.
Ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Phnom Penh warned against "provocative action".
The situation "could lead to miscalculation, serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers", the ministers said in a joint statement published Thursday.
After infuriating China over her trip to Taiwan, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met South Korean political leaders in Seoul on Thursday but avoided making direct public comments on relations with Beijing and Taipei that could further increase regional tensions.
Pelosi, the first House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, said Wednesday in Taipei that the American commitment to democracy in the self-governing island and elsewhere “remains ironclad.” In response, China on Thursday began military exercises, including missile strike training, in six zones surrounding Taiwan, in what could be the biggest of their kind since the mid-1990s.
China's actions have infringed upon international freedom of navigation: Taiwan Presidential Office