TAIPEI, Taiwan -- China said on Friday it would halt cooperation with the United States on areas including military relations and climate change while imposing sanctions against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as Beijing stepped up its retaliation to her Taiwan visit.
The military drills Beijing launched furiously in the wake of her trip earlier this week sent planes, ships and missiles menacingly close to this small island democracy despite growing criticism.
The U.S. delegation's unannounced visit to Taiwan has sparked a growing crisis and sparked tension between Washington, its allies and Beijing.
Beijing will cancel military phone calls between area commanders, defense meetings, and cooperation on anti-drug efforts with the U.S., as well as no longer take part in talks on maritime safety and climate change. China has taken personal action against Pelosi earlier in the day, when it announced sanctions on the speaker and her immediate family in response to what the Chinese foreign ministry called her egregious provocations. The unspecified sanctions, China's latest retaliation for the brief trip to the self-governing island it claims as its own territory, came as Pelosi pledged not to let Beijing isolate Taiwan while Washington and its allies urged de-escalation.
Pelosi said in Japan, the last stop of her Asia tour, that they may try to keep Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us from traveling there.
China's response had largely been directed at the island of 23 million people that lies just across the Taiwan Strait.
On Friday morning, Beijing began a second day of military drills surrounding the island, apparently sending multiple military vessels and aircraft across the median line in the strait that had been an unofficial buffer zone for decades.
A day earlier, it fired ballistic missiles, one of which it boasted had flown directly over the island, and five of which Japan said had landed in its exclusive economic zone waters.