US, Australia and Japan call for China to cease military exercises around Taiwan; Beijing’s suspension of climate talks with US ‘punishes the world’, says John Kerry
How worried should we be about military conflict?
Here’s a summary of the latest developments as it passes 2pm in Taipei.
Christopher Twomey, a security scholar at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, told Reuters the severing of the communication links was worrying, coming at what he believed was the beginning of a new Taiwan crisis.
“That is precisely the time you would want to have more opportunities to talk to the other side … Losing those channels greatly reduces the ability of the two sides to de-conflict military forces as various exercises and operations continue.”
