China vows 'targeted military actions'

TAIPEI, Aug 2 (AFP/Reuters): United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan on Tuesday evening, defying a string of increasingly stark warnings and threats from China that have sent tensions between the world's two superpowers soaring.
Pelosi, second in line to the presidency, is the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years and Beijing has made clear that it regards her presence as a major provocation, setting the region on edge.
Live television images showed the 82-year-old lawmaker, who flew on a US military aircraft into Taipei Songshan Airport, being greeted on arrival by foreign minister Joseph Wu.
Pelosi is currently on a tour of Asia and while neither she nor her office confirmed the Taipei visit, multiple US and Taiwanese media outlets reported it was on the cards-triggering days of anger from Beijing.
Earlier report adds: Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday shortly before the expected arrival in Taipei of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a visit that has pushed friction between Washington and Beijing to a new level.
The Chinese leadership has repeatedly warned against Pelosi, a long-time critic of Beijing, making a trip to self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
Meanwhile four US warships, including an aircraft carrier, were positioned in waters east of Taiwan on what the US Navy called routine deployments.
The carrier USS Ronald Reagan had transited the South China Sea and was currently in the Philippines Sea, east of Taiwan and the Philippines and south of Japan, a US Navy official told Reuters.
It was operating with a guided missile cruiser, USS Antietam, and a destroyer, USS Higgins. The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli was also in the area.
Russia - itself locked in confrontation with the West over its invasion of Ukraine - also chimed in on Pelosi's expected visit.
The Kremlin's foreign ministry spokeswoman called it a "provocation" aimed at pressuring Beijing and reiterated Russian support for Beijing's One China principle.