By Yimou Lee and David Brunnstrom

TAIPEI -Chinese and Taiwanese warships played high-seas “cat and mouse” on Sunday ahead of the scheduled end of four days of unprecedented Chinese military exercises launched in reaction to a visit to Taiwan by the U.S. house speaker.

Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week to the self-ruled island infuriated China, which responded with test launches of ballistic missiles over the island’s capital for the first time and the cutting of communication links with the United States.

Some 10 warships each from China and Taiwan sailed at close quarters in the Taiwan Strait, with some Chinese vessels crossing the median line, an unofficial buffer separating the two sides, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The island’s defence ministry said in a release multiple Chinese military ships, aircraft, and drones were simulating attacks on the island and its navy. It said it had sent aircraft and ships to react “appropriately”.

As Chinese forces “pressed” the line, as they did on Saturday, the Taiwan side stayed close to monitor and, where possible, deny the Chinese the ability to cross, the person said.

“The two sides are showing restraint, the person said, describing the manoeuvres as high seas “cat and mouse”.

“One side tries to cross, and the other stands in the way and forces them to a more disadvantaged position and eventually return to the other side.”

Taiwan said its shore-based anti-ship missiles and its Patriot surface -to-air-missiles were on stand-by.

The Chinese exercises, centred on six locations around the island that China claims as its own, began on Thursday and are scheduled to last until midday on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported last week.

China’s military said on Saturday the sea and air joint exercises, north, southwest and east of Taiwan, had a focus on land-strike and sea-assault capabilities.

The United States called the exercises an escalation.

“These activities are a significant escalation in China’s efforts to change the status quo. They are provocative, irresponsible and raise the risk of miscalculation,” a White House spokesperson said.

“They are also at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, which is what the world expects.”

‘DAMAGING PEACE’

China says its relations with Taiwan are an internal matter and it reserves the right to bring the island under its control, by force if necessary. Taiwan rejects China’s claims saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China has also warned the United States not to “act rashly” and create a greater crisis.

Referring to the response to Pelosi’s visit, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said China had adopted “effective measures that fully demonstrates that China is fully determined and capable of safeguarding national unity and safeguarding … sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters that China had “arrogantly” used military action to disrupt peace and he called on Beijing not to not flex its military muscle.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Saturday its forces scrambled jets to warn away 20 Chinese aircraft, including 14 that crossed the median line. It also detected 14 Chinese ships conducting activity around the Taiwan Strait.

The ministry released a photograph showing Taiwanese sailors closely watching a nearby Chinese vessel.

Taiwan’s forces on Friday fired flares to warn away drones flying over its Kinmen islands and unidentified aircraft flying over its Matsu islands. Both island groups are close to China’s coast.

‘WORLD FACES A CHOICE’

As part of its response to Pelosi’s visit, China has halted communication through various channels with the United States including between military theatre commands and on climate change.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of taking “irresponsible” steps and moving away from prioritising peaceful resolution towards the use of force.[L4N2ZI0BZ]

Pelosi, a long-time China critic and a political ally of U.S. President Joe Biden, arrived in Taiwan late on Tuesday on the highest-level visit to the island by an American official in decades, despite Chinese warnings. She said her visit showed unwavering U.S. commitment to supporting Taiwan’s democracy.

“The world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy,” she said. She also stressed that her trip was “not about changing the status quo in Taiwan or the region”.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists in a civil war, prompting their retreat to the island.

Speaking during a visit to the Philippines, Blinken said the United States had been hearing concern from allies about what he called China’s dangerous and destabilising actions but Washington sought to avoid escalating the situation.

He said China’s cessation of bilateral dialogue in eight key areas were moves that would punish the world.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, on Friday accused Blinken of spreading “misinformation”.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee in Taipei, David Brunnstrom in Manila, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Meg Shen in Hong Kong, Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Ryan Woo; Writing by Tony Munroe and Greg Torode; Editing by Robert Birsel)

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden sees strong ties with Pacific Island countries as a priority, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in the Solomon Islands on Sunday, underscoring the stakes of her visit as tensions have been mounting in the region.

At a World War Two memorial event in the Solomons’ capital, Honiara, Sherman rebuked governments that she said sought to dismantle the rules-based international order. She did not specify which governments she was criticizing but tensions in the region has been mounting between U.S. allies and China.

The Solomons surprised their neighbour Australia, and the United States, this year by striking a security pact with China.

“President Biden has made solidarity with the Pacific Islands a priority for his entire administration from the very beginning,” Sherman said at the event, also attended by top diplomats from Australia and New Zealand.

“We have built profound and enduring ties with each other, as one Pacific family.”

Sherman referred to her father, a U.S. Marine who was wounded in the World War Two Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.

“Some around the world … seem to have forgotten the awful lessons learned here,” she said.

She called out “leaders who believe that others must be diminished if they are to rise (and) believe that coercion, pressure, and violence are tools to be used with impunity”.

Those leaders, who she did not name, appeared to “believe that the principles and institutions the world set up after the Second World War, the rules-based international order … can be ignored and undermined, diminished and destroyed”.

At the event, U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, whose father, President John F. Kennedy, also served in the Solomons, said that “countless Americans and allied families have Solomon Islanders to thank for their survival”.

Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, referred to an agreement with the police in the Solomons to dispose of unexploded ordnance from World War Two, saying it was “ultimately about supporting (the police) to ensure the safety of Solomon Islands people”.

Sherman’s tour is ostensibly timed to commemorate important battles in World War Two, but several senior U.S. officials have visited the region this year as geostrategic competition has increased.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Samoa and Tonga in May, followed by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in early June.

The United States has said it wants to open embassies in the Solomons, Kirabati and Tonga, where Sherman visited the day before.

(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio and Gerry Doyle)