Featured in Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, two of Tokyo’s leading newspapers, “according to the Ministry of Defense [do Japão]four of the missiles fired would have passed over Taiwan”.
The Japanese information was the headline and most read text on the website of the American Bloomberg, adding that the Chinese network CCTV heard Meng Xiangqing, “a professor at the National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army, confirming the missile’s trajectory over Taiwan.” According to Meng, it was “a clear signal to the Taiwanese authorities that the current exercises exceed all previous ones in scale and deterrence.”
Later, in Taipei’s Zhongguo Shibao headline, “Has a Chinese missile flown over Taiwan?”, with the vague answer: “The Ministry of National Defense has stated that the main flight path of ballistic missiles after launch is outside the atmosphere, which is very important for the vastness of the flyover”. The agency added that “information about the flight path will not be released, considering that the shot aims, as its main objective, to deter us”.
In the calls in Japan, more important than the overflight of the island was that “five Chinese ballistic missiles landed for the first time in Japan’s exclusive economic zone”. The newspapers point out that they are “in response to Pelosi’s visit”—who has now arrived in Tokyo and “is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.”
South Korean president Yoon Seok-yeol avoided meeting the US House Speaker, whose two-day visit to Seoul was fraught with embarrassment. One of the few Western outlets to report, the Financial Times ran the headline “South Korean President Snubbs Pelosi”.
The undoing would have started on landing. Headlined by Seoul’s Chosun Ilbo, “An empty airport as Pelosi arrives.” At that moment, the newspaper reported, Yoon was watching a play, then going out to dinner with the actors.
He took a five-day vacation and, despite staying in the South Korean capital, he only agreed to make a phone call to the American parliamentarian.
SMOKING BIDEN
In Washington, the White House, already “smoky” with the Speaker of the House, according to Bloomberg, began to pressure the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also Democrat Bob Menendez – who wants to approve US$ 4.5 billion for the Taiwanese military.
Menendez and Pelosi defended their actions in articles by the New York Times and Washington Post, respectively, both skirting Biden.
