BEIJING, AUGUST 2 – RIA Novosti. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) begins military exercises in the South China Sea on Tuesday amid regional escalation over a possible visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

China Maritime Security Administration announced that military exercises will be held in the South China Sea region, the coordinates of which are stated on the agency’s website, from 00:00 on August 2 to 24:00 on August 6, local time. In connection with this, all ships will be prohibited from entering the relevant area.

Details on what types of troops will participate in the exercises and what maneuvers are planned were not specified.

Last week, the Chinese military was conducting regular exercises, including live fire. From August 1 to August 4, live fire exercises were held in the waters of the Bohai Bay in the east of the country, on July 30, exercises of the Eastern and Southern regions of the PLA combat command were held in East China and the South China seas.

Many observers attribute the Chinese military’s activities not only to the PLA’s 95th anniversary celebrations, but also to Pelosi’s tour of Asia, which is expected to take her to Taiwan.

Pelosi’s Asia tour, which will take her to Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, is gaining increasing global attention after plans to visit Taiwan were announced. If the visit to the Chinese island takes place despite Beijing’s protests, it will be the first visit by a US House of Representatives spokesperson since 1997. The US administration, warned by the Chinese president of the “burn risks of playing with fire”, assured Beijing of its adherence to the “one China” policy, but shied away from a possible visit, saying the speaker made the decisions himself. Taiwanese media reported that he could come to the island on Tuesday and meet with the island administration’s leadership on Wednesday. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not confirm these reports.

Official relations between the central government of the People’s Republic of China and the island province were interrupted in 1949 after Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, moved to Taiwan. Trade and informal relations between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to establish contacts through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations along the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.

The PRC always opposes any contact between representatives of Taipei and current officials, especially senior officials or the military of countries with which Beijing has diplomatic relations.

News of a possible visit to the island by Pelosi, whom Beijing calls the third most important official in the US government, received a very negative reaction from China, as expected. China’s Foreign Ministry said that if Pelosi visits the island, Beijing will certainly take decisive and effective measures to protect its state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that the United States will be fully responsible for any serious consequences that may arise. At the same time, China’s official departments did not specify what kind of drastic measures they were talking about.

In a phone call with US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China strongly protests foreign intervention in the Taiwan issue. He pointed out that the will of the Chinese people, whose population exceeds 1.4 billion, to protect China’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity is unshakable, and anyone who plays with fire will definitely burn himself.