Taiwan

Tsai Ing-wen arrived in the city on Wednesday, where she was greeted by competing crowds of protesters and supporters outside her hotel, reports the BBC. The President's stop in New York comes as part of her trip to Central America which will take her,to Guatemala and Belize this week.

If the US refuses to change course and goes down that wrong path, there will be real consequences and it will come at real costs to the US, Spokesperson Mao Ning made the comment in response to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's recent erroneous remarks on Taiwan.

Talking to news channel CBS, Burns said that the US continues to take the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan seriously, and the risks of conflict would likely grow into the decade and beyond. U.S. intelligence and defense officials believe Xi wants to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, if not sooner. However, Burns also pointed out that China's goal of invading Taiwan by 2027.

It said that 71 Chinese air force planes, including fighter jets and drones, had entered Taiwan's so-called air defence identification zone, the BBC said. Taiwan is self-ruled - but China sees it as a breakaway province with which it will eventually reunite. Tensions between the two sides have steadily increased in recent months, BBC reported.

To achieve that, the Chinese military should uphold the party's "absolute leadership", modernise its theory, organisation, personnel and weapons, Xi was quoted as saying by the CNN. He pledged to improve the PLA's ability to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, and to "effectively fulfill the mission of the people's army in the new era."

During a CBS News interview on Sunday, Biden was asked "what should Chinese President Xi know about your commitment to Taiwan?", to which the President replied: "We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago... And that there's one China policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence.

"The Communist authorities have made it clear that Taiwan must understand what's happening to the Uyghur people," Nury Turkel, the chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, said during his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the two-day Regional Religious Freedom Forum in Taipei, RFA reported.

"We will continue defending our national security, firmly holding on to the median line, and doing whatever it takes to protect our homes, our families, and our sovereignty," Ministry spokesperson Li-Fang Sun said. After US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei on August 2, the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched military manoeuvres around Taiwan, followed by large-scale maritime and aerial drills, reports dpa news agency.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Washington must observe the "One China" policy, which is the position that there is only one Chinese government, reports dpa news agency. Taiwan has had an independent government since 1949, but China considers the democratic island part of its territory and opposes any form of official contacts between Taiwan and others.

The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were on a "routine" mission through international waters, the US Navy's 7th Fleet said in a statement on Sunday. "The ship's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows," dpa news agency reported quoting the statement.