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Suspected drones flew over outlying Taiwanese islands and hackers attacked its defence ministry website, authorities in Taipei said on Thursday, a day (Aug 4) after a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi that outraged China, Reuters reported.

Taiwan has been on alert as China conducts a series of military exercises in response to a visit to the island this week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, some of which were to take place within the island’s 12-nautical-mile sea and air territory, according to the defence ministry in Taipei.

That has never happened before and a senior ministry official described the potential move as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island were an internal affair.

“Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful,” the Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said.

China’s Xinhua news agency has said the exercises, involving live fire drills, will take place in six areas which ring Taiwan and will begin at noon (0400 GMT).

On Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified aircraft, probably drones, had flown above the area of the Kinmen islands, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.

Major General Chang Zone-sung of the Army’s Kinmen Defence Command told Reuters that the Chinese drones came in a pair and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday night, at around 9pm and 10pm.

“We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and to drive them away. After that, they turned around. They came into our restricted area and that’s why we dispersed them,” he said.

The heavily fortified Kinmen islands are just off the southeastern coast of China, near the city of Xiamen.

“We have a standard operating procedure. We will react if they come in,” Mr Chang said, adding that the alert level there remained “normal”.

He said he believed the drones were intended to gather intelligence on Taiwan’s security deployment in its outlying islands.

Last week, Taiwan’s military fired flares to warn away a drone that “glanced” at its Matsu archipelago off the coast of China’s Fujian province and was possibly probing its defences, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.

The first Taiwan Strait crisis broke out in 1954 when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists placed thousands of troops on the Taiwan-ruled Kinmen and Matsu islands, according to Reuters.

China, then led by Mao Zedong, responded with artillery bombardments of the islands.

Beijing's forces would intermittently shell Kinmen until a stalemate in 1979, in attempts to dislodge the Nationalist forces there.

Taiwan's defence ministry also said on Thursday that its website suffered cyber attacks and went offline temporarily, adding it was working closely with other authorities to enhance cyber security as tensions with China rise.

Earlier this week, several government websites, including the presidential office, were subject to overseas cyber attacks,some of which authorities said were launched by China and Russia.

Pelosi, the highest-level US visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there.

China summoned the US ambassador in Beijing and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.

Security in the area around the US Embassy in Beijing remained unusually tight on Thursday as it has been throughout this week.

Although Chinese social media users have vented fury on Pelosi, there were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott US products.

After Pelosi's departure on Wednesday, Taiwan's defence ministry announced that 27 Chinese warplanes had entered the island's air defence identification zone (ADIZ).

Over the last two years, Beijing has ramped up military incursions into Taiwan's ADIZ - which is not the same as the island's territorial airspace, but includes a far greater area, Reuters reported.

The ministry published a map that showed 16 Su-30s and 6 J-11s had crossed the so-called "median line" of the Taiwan Strait - an unofficial boundary in the narrow waterway, which separates the island from the mainland and straddles vital shipping lanes.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet top South Korean political leaders on Thursday, a day after she concluded her high-profile visit to Taiwan by renewing Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defending democracy on the self-governing island despite vehement protests from China, Associated Press reported.

Pelosi and other members of Congress flew to South Korea on Wednesday evening as part of their Asian tour that already took them to Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. After South Korea, they will travel to Japan.

On Thursday, Pelosi will meet South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin Pyo and other senior members of Parliament for talks on regional security, economic cooperation and climate issues, according to Kim’s office.

Later in the day, Pelosi planned to visit an inter-Korean border area that is jointly controlled by the American-led UN Command and North Korea, a South Korean official said requesting anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media on the matter.

If that visit occurs, Pelosi would be the highest-level American to go to the Joint Security Area since then-President Donald Trump went there in 2019 for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Sitting inside the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide Demilitarized Zone, a buffer created at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the JSA is the site of past bloodshed and a venue for numerous talks. US presidents and other top officials have often travelled to the JSA and other border areas to reaffirm their security commitment to South Korea.

On Wednesday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry slammed the United States over Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, saying that “the current situation clearly shows that the impudent interference of the US in internal affairs of other countries.”

Also on Thursday afternoon, Pelosi will speak by phone with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is on a vacation this week, according to Yoon’s office. No face-to-face meeting has been arranged between them. Yoon, a conservative, took office in May with a vow to boost South Korea’s military alliance with the United States and take a tougher line on North Korean provocations, according to Associated Press.

Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, the first by an incumbent House speaker in 25 years, has infuriated China, which views the island nation as a breakaway province to be annexed by force if necessary. China views visits to Taiwan by foreign officials as recognizing its sovereignty. 

“Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” Pelosi said in a short speech during a meeting with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday. “America’s determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad.”

The Biden administration and Pelosi have said the United States remains committed to the so-called one-China policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. The administration discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from visiting.

In response to Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, China announced it would launch its largest military maneuvers aimed at Taiwan in more than a quarter of a century. China also already flew fighter jets and other war planes toward Taiwan, and blocked imports of citrus and fish from Taiwan, Associated Press reported.

China is gearing up for big military exercises in the seas around Taiwan following top US politician Nancy Pelosi's trip to the island, BBC reported.

The drills are due to begin at 12:00 local time (04:00 GMT) and in several areas are due to take place within 12 miles of the island.

Taiwan faced "deliberately heightened military threats", President Tsai said.

Ms Pelosi made a brief but controversial visit to Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway province.

The drills - China's biggest ever around Taiwan - are Beijing's main response to the visit, although it has also blocked some trade with the island.

The exercises will take place in busy waterways and will include long-range live ammunition shooting, Beijing says. 

Taiwan said it scrambled jets to warn off Chinese warplanes on Wednesday.

Its military had also fired flares to drive away unidentified aircraft, probably drones, which were flying over the Kinmen islands, located close to the mainland, 

Taiwan's defence ministry also said it had suffered cyber attacks, following similar attacks on other government websites earlier in the week, according to BBC.

Taiwan has asked ships to find alternative routes to avoid the drills and is negotiating with neighbouring Japan and the Philippines to find alternative aviation routes. 

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the military drills were irresponsible and warned they could spiral out of control.

The US hoped Beijing would avoid "escalation that could lead to a mistake or miscalculation" in the air or on the seas, he said in an interview with National Public Radio on Wednesday.

Japan has also expressed concern to China over the areas covered by the military drills, which it says overlaps with its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Tokyo expects issues surrounding Taiwan to be "resolved peacefully through dialogue", chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday.

The boundaries of Japan's EEZ have been contentious among its neighbours, and includes some islets also claimed by Beijing, BBC reported.

In response, Chinese government spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the waters in this area had not been delimited and Beijing did not accept the "so-called" Japan EEZ.

The ruling coalition leaders have agreed to hold the federal and provincial elections in November.

A meeting of the leaders held at the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar on Wednesday agreed to hold the elections on November 20.

Rastriya Janamorcha Party Vice-Chairman Durga Paudel, who attended the meeting, said that the leaders have agreed to hold the elections on November 20.

She said that the next meeting of the Council of Ministers will announce the date for the elections.