U. S. cannot allow China’s ‘new normal’ to pressure Taiwan with military drills: Nancy Pelosi

"What we saw with China is that they were trying to establish sort of a new normal. And we just can't let that happen," Ms. Pelosi told a news conference on August 10, referring to the provocative drills.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the U. S. just cannot allow China to establish a “new normal” to put pressure on Taiwan through the kind of military drills and warplane incursions that Beijing launched after she visited the self-governing island.

China on August 10 announced that it has "successfully completed" its week-long and unprecedented military drills that have essentially encircled Taiwan.

Initially, the People's Liberation Army announced the war games in the busy Taiwan Strait from August 4 to 7, the day after Ms. Pelosi, who is the highest-ranking U. S. leader to have visited Taiwan in 25 years, left Taipei after high-level meetings. It later kept extending them, keeping the breakaway island on tenterhooks.

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"What we saw with China is that they were trying to establish sort of a new normal. And we just can't let that happen," Ms. Pelosi told a news conference on August 10, referring to the provocative drills.

The Chinese military exercises involved hundreds of warplanes, dozens of naval ships, including an aircraft carrier group with a nuclear submarine in tow, amid assertions by the official media here that such war games in the busy Taiwan Strait will be a new normal.

Ms. Pelosi's trip to Taipei angered Beijing, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. Taiwan has accused China of using the recent drills as practice for an invasion.