Blinken: China Drills Are ‘Significant Escalation’

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan including missiles fired into Japan’s exclusive economic zone represent a “significant escalation” and that he has urged Beijing to back down. China launched the drills following a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan that infuriated Beijing, which claims the self-governed island as its own territory. Blinken told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia that Pelosi’s visit was peaceful and did not represent a change in American policy toward Taiwan, accusing China of using it as a “pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.”