BEIJING ¨C Chinese President Xi Jinping may not have been able to stop Nancy Pelosi¡¯s visit to Taiwan, but he ordered his country¡¯s military to rehearse a much more aggressive step: a blockade crucial to taking the island by force, security experts say.
China¡¯s military planners have long discussed a blockade of Taiwan, but until now most likely saw practicing such a move as too provocative, security experts say.
But after U.S. House Speaker Pelosi¡¯s visit, China¡¯s military for the first time fired missiles over Taipei, flew waves of drones over Taiwan¡¯s offshore islands, sailed warships across the median line of the Taiwan Strait and surrounded the self-ruled island in what Taiwan¡¯s military said amounted to a practice ¡°blockade.¡±
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