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US politician Nancy Pelosi's visit has set off fresh tensions between self-ruled Taiwan and China, which claims the island as part of its territory. BBC correspondents weigh in on the significance of China's main response - its live-fire military drills around the island - and how the two sides see them.
The new normal
The hardliners in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party would probably be quite happy with where Nancy Pelosi's visit has left them.
Ms Pelosi gave them a window and they used it.
A series of more extreme military measures around Taiwan have now been thrust into the realm of "acceptability".
These moves - including firing missiles over the island - have become "acceptable" not because the international community approves of them but because they have happened, and Beijing has got away with it.
Each time the People's Liberation Army (PLA) flies fighter jets closer - or in greater numbers - across the Taiwan Strait, this becomes the new standard.
What's more, the very idea that mainland China might one day attack Taiwan to seize the territory by force is now being considered a likely possibility by many more Chinese people.
Again, this is seen as a win for those who want it to happen.
Other, more peaceful strategies for achieving what China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi described as Taiwan's "return to the motherland" are not being discussed currently - or certainly not in any detail.
A side benefit of this grand, live-fire show by the PLA has also been to accelerate the belief globally that China's military rise is unstoppable - this may possibly intimidate South East Asian neighbours which have rival claims to the South China Sea.
These vast military exercises would have taken some planning. It is hard to imagine that the generals conceived of them, all of a sudden, when it was leaked that Ms Pelosi was planning visit Taiwan.
What seems more likely is that they had the plans ready and pulled them out of the drawer because the opportunity presented itself.
As one laughing nationalist in Beijing put it when he was interviewed in the street last week, "Thanks comrade Pelosi"!
It would be dangerous though if the Chinese government became too caught up in its own belligerent rhetoric and started convincing itself that seizing and holding Taiwan could be relatively easy - rather than a tough, bloody, catastrophic event.
Some analysts even think that these war games have assisted the Taiwanese and US military in preparing defence strategies to ward off any attack from the mainland.
But the exercises were not enough for President Xi Jinping's government. On Friday night the foreign ministry announced that China was suspending cooperation with the US on cross-border crime, including narcotics, and maritime safety; and that all high-level US-China military dialogue were to be paused.
American media has also reported that calls from the US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, and General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, have gone unanswered from the Chinese side.
Crucially, Beijing has suspended climate change cooperation with Washington. The world's largest carbon emitters are not talking.
Tensions have certainly increased following Ms Pelosi's visit, but Mr Xi's government seems to like it that way - at least for now.
A war of words
For the last few days, much of the attention has been on the military fireworks going on around Taiwan. But equally important are the words from Beijing that have accompanied the drills.
China's foreign minister Wang Yi has pointed to a small group of Taiwanese politicians whom he has labelled the "Taiwan separatist forces".
At the top of this list is Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen. She has been singled out for special opprobrium. Minister Wang called her an "unworthy descendant of the Chinese nation" - in other words, a traitor.
The aim is to try and separate the mass of Taiwanese people, who Beijing says are not the enemy, from the small "clique" it claims is trying to tear Taiwan away from the motherland.
The problem for Beijing is this version of Taiwan is completely at odds with reality. Recent polls show an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese oppose any sort of unification with China, and a large and growing majority consider themselves "Taiwanese" and not "Chinese".
According to Wang Yi - this is because Tsai Ing-wen's government has been going "all out to promote de-Sinicisation" and trying to create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan".
That is why we've heard the Chinese ambassador to France saying that after Taiwan is "reunified" with China, Taiwanese people "will need re-education". According to him, they have been "brainwashed" into believing they are not Chinese.
Again, this is completely at odds with reality. Taiwan is an open society where people are free to read what they want, think what they want, and vote for who they like.
The question now is: what impact will all of this have?
Beijing's objective is to frighten the Taiwanese in to voting against President Tsai's party in the next election in 2024. They would like to see the more-China friendly KMT (Kuomintang) back in power.
China is also making direct threats to Taiwanese business leaders, many of whom have large investments in the Chinese mainland. They're being told they need to "choose the right side".
Beijing has tried these sorts of tactics before, and they have not been very successful. A lot of Taiwanese businesses will be hurt by Beijing's sanctions, particularly its fruit farmers. The tourist industry is already being hurt by China's embargo on mainland tourists coming to Taiwan.
But if the evidence of the last few days is anything to go by, Taiwanese attitudes towards Beijing look set to harden further.
With inputs from BBC.
AUG 8: The Chinese army's Eastern Theatre Command said that it would practice anti-submarine attacks and sea raids.
The earlier four days of exercises were Beijing's response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island.
Taiwan has accused China of using these drills as practice for an invasion of the island.
On Monday Taiwan said Chinese aircraft and ships had not entered its territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles (22km; 14 miles) from the coast, during the exercises so far.
The US, along with Australia and Japan, have condemned the drills, saying their objective is to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait - the 180km-wide (110 miles) body of water between the mainland and the island.
Chinese aircraft and ships have repeatedly crossed the median line in the strait during the drills. But Taiwan's defence ministry said on Monday that the median line was a tacit understanding that has been in place since the 1950s and its existence was a "fact".
Washington has also condemned Beijing for breaking off cooperation with the US in a number of areas including climate change in retaliation for Ms Pelosi's visit.
Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that it can claim by force, if necessary.
But Taiwan is a self-ruled island that sees itself as distinct from China.
Any hint of recognition of this by world leaders, however, enrages China.
The renewed activity around Taiwan comes after Chinese maritime authorities announced that drills would also take place in other locations.
In the Yellow Sea - located between China and the Korean peninsula - new daily military drills were due to start from Saturday until the middle of August, and include live-fire exercises.
In addition, a month-long military operation in one area of the Bohai sea - north of the Yellow Sea - started on Saturday.
AUG 3: At the heart of the divide is that the Chinese government sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will, eventually, be part of the country.
But many Taiwanese people consider their self-ruled island to be a separate nation - whether or not independence is ever officially declared.
What is the history between China and Taiwan?
The first known settlers in Taiwan were Austronesian tribal people, who are thought to have come from modern day southern China.
The island seems to have first appeared in Chinese records in AD239, when an emperor sent an expeditionary force to explore the area - a fact Beijing uses to back its territorial claim.
After a relatively brief spell as a Dutch colony (1624-1661), Taiwan was administered by China's Qing dynasty from 1683 to 1895.
From the 17th Century, significant numbers of migrants started arriving from China, often fleeing turmoil or hardship. Most were Hoklo Chinese from Fujian (Fukien) province or Hakka Chinese, largely from Guangdong. Their descendants are now by far the largest demographic groups on the island.
In 1895, Japan won the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Qing government had to cede Taiwan to Japan. After World War Two, Japan surrendered and relinquished control of territory it had taken from China. The Republic of China (ROC) - one of the victors in the war - began ruling Taiwan with the consent of its allies, the US and UK.
But in the next few years a civil war broke out in China, and the then-leader Chiang Kai-shek's troops were defeated by Mao Zedong's Communist army.
Chiang, the remnants of his Kuomintang (KMT) government and their supporters - about 1.5m people - fled to Taiwan in 1949.
This group, referred to as Mainland Chinese, dominated Taiwan's politics for many years though they only account for 14% of the population. Chiang established a government in exile in Taiwan which he led for the next 25 years.
Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, allowed more democratisation after coming to power. He faced resistance from local people resentful of authoritarian rule and was under pressure from a growing democracy movement.
President Lee Teng-hui, known as Taiwan's "father of democracy", led constitutional changes towards, which eventually made way for the election of the island's first non-KMT president, Chen Shui-bian, in 2000.
So who recognises Taiwan?
There is disagreement and confusion about what Taiwan is.
It has its own constitution, democratically-elected leaders, and about 300,000 active troops in its armed forces.
Chiang's ROC government-in-exile at first claimed to represent the whole of China, which it intended to re-occupy. It held China's seat on the United Nations Security Council and was recognised by many Western nations as the only Chinese government.
But by the 1970s some countries began to argue that the Taipei government could no longer be considered a genuine representative of the hundreds of millions of people living in mainland China.
Then in 1971, the UN switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing and the ROC government was forced out. In 1978, China also began opening up its economy. Recognising opportunities for trade and the need to develop relations, the US formally established diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979.
Since then the number of countries that recognise the ROC government diplomatically has fallen drastically to about 15.
Now, despite having all the characteristic of an independent state and a political system that is distinct from China, Taiwan's legal status remains unclear.
How are relations between Taiwan and China?
Relations started improving in the 1980s as Taiwan relaxed rules on visits to and investment in China. In 1991, it proclaimed that the war with the People's Republic of China was over.
China proposed the so-called "one country, two systems" option, which it said would allow Taiwan significant autonomy if it agreed to come under Beijing's control. This system underpinned Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 and the manner in which it was governed until recently, when Beijing has sought to increase its influence.
Taiwan rejected the offer and Beijing's insisted that Taiwan's ROC government is illegitimate - but unofficial representatives from China and Taiwan still held limited talks.
Then in 2000, Taiwan elected Chen Shui-bian as president, much to Beijing's alarm. Mr Chen and his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), had openly backed "independence".
A year after Mr Chen was re-elected in 2004, China passed a so-called anti-secession law, stating China's right to use "non-peaceful means" against Taiwan if it tried to "secede" from China.
Mr Chen was succeeded by the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou in 2008 who tried improving relations through economic agreements.
Eight years later, in 2016, Taiwan's current president Tsai Ing-wen, who now leads the independence-leaning DPP, was elected.
The rhetoric sharpened further in 2018 as Beijing stepped up pressure on international companies - if they failed to list Taiwan as a part of China on their websites, it threatened to block them from doing business in China.
Ms Tsai won a second term in 2020 with a record-breaking 8.2 million votes in what was widely seen as a snub to Beijing. By then Hong Kong had seen months of unrest, with huge protesters against the mainland's growing influence - and many in Taiwan were watching closely.
Later that year, China's implemented a national security law in Hong Kong that is considered to be yet another sign of Beijing's assertion.
How much of an issue is independence in Taiwan?
While political progress has been slow, links between Beijing and Taipei, and the two economies have grown. Between 1991 and the end of May 2021, Taiwanese investment in China totalled $193.5bn (£157.9bn), Taiwanese official figures show.
Some Taiwanese people worry their economy is now dependent on China. Others believe that closer business ties make Chinese military action less likely, because of the cost to China's own economy.
A controversial trade agreement sparked the "Sunflower Movement" in 2014, where students and activists occupied Taiwan's parliament protesting against what they called China's growing influence over Taiwan.
Officially, the ruling DPP still favours formal independence for Taiwan, while the KMT favours eventual unification with China.
But most Taiwanese people seem to fall somewhere in between. A June 2022 survey found that only 5.2% of Taiwanese supported independence as soon as possible, while 1.3% were in favour of unification with mainland China at the earliest possibility.
The rest supported some form of maintaining the status quo, with the largest group wanting to maintain it indefinitely with no move towards either independence or unification.
What does the US have to do with the China-Taiwan divide?
Washington's long-standing policy has been one of "strategic ambiguity" to the extent that it would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan.
Officially, it sticks to the "One-China" policy, which recognises only one Chinese government - in Beijing - and has formal ties with Beijing rather than Taipei.
But it has also pledged to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons and stressed that any attack by China would cause "grave concern".
In May 2022, President Joe Biden replied in the affirmative when asked whether the US would defend Taiwan militarily. Soon after, the White House quickly clarified that the US position on Taiwan had not changed and reiterated its commitment to the "One-China" policy. It has similarly contradicted previous statements by Mr Biden on military support for Taiwan.
The issue of Taiwan has also strained relations between the US and China. Beijing has condemned any perceived support from Washington for Taipei - and has responded by stepping up incursions of military jets into Taiwan's air defence zone since Mr Biden's election.
With inputs from BBC
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