Image source, Reuters

More now from the White House briefing.

John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, continues by talking about China's military response to the visit today.

He says the US will "not engage in sabre-rattling".

We've just been listening to a press briefing at the White House.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told journalists Nancy Pelosi's visit was consistent with the One China policy. [This policy means the US acknowledges China’s position that there's only one Chinese government.]

He says there is no need to turn it into a crisis - the US still does not support independence for Taiwan.

He adds the US is against any changes to the status quo and that any differences should be resolved by peaceful means.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC News, Taiwan

Friends who know I am in Taiwan have been sending me increasingly alarming messages - "I hope you have your flak jacket with you!" "Does your hotel have a bomb shelter?"

They've seen the fire-breathing rhetoric coming from Chinese state media, most notably the Global Times, and have concluded that Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan could end very badly.

Indeed some very eminent US-based China scholars have said the same, calling the visit "reckless" and warning against "pushing Beijing into a corner".

That's not how it's viewed here.

Freddy Lim is a one-time heavy metal singer, and now a ruling party MP. These days Freddy sports a short haircut and a smart shirt, but tattoos still peek out from beneath his neatly pressed cuffs.

"There is a basic principle that we welcome high level politicians like Nancy Pelosi coming to Taiwan. It's very important. It is not a provocation against China. It is welcoming a friend in a normal way, just like any other country," he told the BBC.

Read in full

Beijing's decision to announce three days of live fire exercises is China's way of psychologically intimidating Taiwan's citizens, the island's defence ministry says.

China's People’s Liberation Army will conduct three-day live fire exercises starting from tomorrow,

But the ministry is telling people not to worry, as the armed forces have "reinforced" their alertness level and are closely monitoring the situation.

The military has the ability and confidence to ensure Taiwan's security, it adds.

So many people were trying to track whether Nancy Pelosi was flying to Taiwan that a tracking website crashed.

Flightradar24 recorded a site record of more than 708,000 visitors and said it had to limit non-subscribers' access in order to keep the service online.

"Unfortunately, due to the volume of users, it was necessary to deploy our waiting room functionality, which meters access," the company said in a statement, referring to "unprecedented" interest.

The reason for the huge interest was that Pelosi's visit - part of a wider trip to the region - had not been officially confirmed.

As live footage was shown of Pelosi's plane touching down in Taipei, the western world is "holding our breath", says Margaret MacMillan, emeritus professor of international history at Oxford University.

"Let's hope it isn't one of those historic moments where we all look back and say 'oh that really was the beginning of something'", she told the BBC.

"What is the Chinese government going to do and will it change their stance on other things, on Ukraine?

"The Chinese have not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine but they have not sold them weapons. They haven’t really egged them on in Ukraine, they haven’t shown wholehearted support for them.

"I wonder if that will change."

Image source, EPA

Russia has warned that Pelosi's trip to Taiwan is a "clear provocation" and risks a conflict.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "everything about this tour and the possible visit to Taiwan is purely provocative".

Now, Moscow's foreign ministry is saying China has the right to "take measures to protect its sovereignty".

Image source, EPA

It's entered the early hours of Wednesday in Taiwan now. Here's a re-cap of what's been happening tonight:

• US Speaker Nancy Pelosi has touched down in Taiwan as part of a tour of Asia
• The trip, which is not backed by President Joe Biden, is the first by such a senior US official in decades
• China has branded the landmark visit "extremely dangerous"
• "Those who play with fire will perish by it," Beijing warned in a statement
• But Pelosi said US solidarity with Taiwan "is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy"

• As her plane touched down, Chinese state media reported that its military jets were crossing the Taiwan strait
• Russia has called the visit a "clear provocation
• Pelosi will meet Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in the morning, then fly out after lunch, the country's official central news agency says

Read our full news story here.

John Sudworth
Reporting from Washington

Nancy Pelosi’s visit is garnering a fair bit of bipartisan support from Republican opponents who’d usually be very unlikely to count themselves among her fanbase.

With former senior officials from the Trump administration Mike Pompeo and John Bolton tweeting their approval, it’s a reminder of how – regardless of the Biden administration’s attempts to dissuade her from travelling – China’s increasing threats over Taiwan are only serving to build a rare space for consensus in a political landscape normally riven by partisan division.

This week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is due to discuss a new piece of proposed legislation, the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, crafted by both Democrat and Republican senators which would boost US military assistance to the island and designate it as a “major non-Nato ally”.

There is plenty of dissenting opinion, of course, including an op-ed in the New York Times describing Pelosi’s trip as “utterly reckless”. It includes the claim that the Biden administration has – so far – had some success in persuading China’s President Xi Jinping not to supply the Russians with military aid for their invasion of Ukraine.

That could now be put in jeopardy, the political commentator Thomas Friedman suggests.

In another example of unintended consequences, Pelosi’s visit provides a window onto a new dimension in global news reporting – the presence of a much boosted locally based foreign press corps in Taiwan.

China’s growing intolerance of independent journalism in recent years, and multiple expulsions and forced departures (including my own), have seen many foreign reporters setting up instead in Taipei – an outcome that the Chinese authorities will not be too pleased about.

Taiwan has denied claims that Chinese Su-35s were flying across the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan's defence ministry said there were internet rumours to that effect, but that they were "fake news" and its citizens should not spread this information online.

Stephen McDonell
China correspondent

Beijing promised military action if Nancy Pelosi's visited Taiwan and that what we are seeing.

As soon as the US House Speaker landed, China's state media was ready to go, announcing that the country's fighter jets were flying across the Taiwan Strait, as a show of force.

Soon Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying was tweeting, "China has been compelled to act in self-defence. Any countermeasure to be taken by China would be a justified & necessary response to the US oblivion to China's repeated démarches and the US's unscrupulous behaviour".

It looks like the centrepiece of China's response will be a series of live-fire exercises in the waters ringing the island over several days.

According to the People’s Liberation Army, in six huge areas off Taiwan's North, South, East and West coasts, China’s aircraft and ships will be manoeuvring and testing long-range ammunition.

The extent to which her visit has increased regional tensions will be debated but so will the extent to which these PLA exercises may deter senior politicians from the US travelling to Taiwan in the future.

If not, what might Beijing try next time?

Image source, Ritchie B Tongo/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The BBC's Asia Pacific editor Celia Hatton has been calling Pelosi's trip to Taiwan a "historic moment".

But before she'd even stepped off the plane, Pelosi was already sending a message to China, Hatton tells the World Service.

When she left Malaysia, her flight path was being watched very closely by Chinese social media.

As she entered Taiwan from the east – up the coast of the Philippines – she stayed well away from the Taiwan Strait.

The flight path would be decided by Washington. So this could be one of the little signals between the two rival superpowers that they don't want an escalation, adds Hatton.

Image source, Getty Images

Hong Kong's leader has strongly condemned Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

The territory's new chief executive John Lee said his government had an "unwavering determination in and a clear stance against any advocacy of 'Taiwan independence'".

Pelosi's visit was tantamount to encouraging "Taiwan independence'" and openly challenged the one China principle, he added, and showed contempt for the well-being of more than 20 million people in Taiwan.

Beijing has in the past said that Taiwan could become a Special Administrative Region of China like Hong Kong.

Image source, Getty Images

Since 1979, the US has agreed to recognise the “One China” policy.

It means the US acknowledges China’s position that there’s only one Chinese government.

So what does that mean for Taiwan?

Under the policy, the US has formal ties with China, not Taiwan.

But the US still supports the island and has promised to help it defend itself, including supplying arms.

The "One China" policy is a key cornerstone of Sino-US relations. But it’s different to the One China principle, which is China’s insistence that it will one day fully take back Taiwan.

China's ruling Communist Party has threatened to use force if Taiwan ever formally declares independence.

The US Democrat's motorcade arrives at the hotel she and her delegation will be staying in Taipei, Taiwan's capital.

John Sudworth
Reporting from Washington

Image source, EPA

Nancy Pelosi’s flight, and the geopolitical storm surrounding it, have brought into sharp focus some of the changing realities for Taiwan, its people and its relationship with China and the US.

For decades, the two big superpowers have relied on two little words - "One China" – to do a lot of heavy lifting. Beijing uses the principle as the basis for its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, while the US argues that, in its adherence to a "One China" policy, it merely acknowledges that the claim exists.

The deliberate ambiguity in this formula is now being stretched to breaking point.

Few observers any longer dare to hope that it will buy time for China’s economic development to eventually bring with it a softening of its political model. Or, alternatively, for deepening trade ties that would build a dependency that makes the threat of war redundant.

Instead, today, China is as unapologetically authoritarian and intolerant of dissent as it ever was, and Taiwan is a vibrant democracy, with free elections and a flourishing civil society. It’s a shift that poses major questions both for the US and for the Chinese Communist Party which sees the territory drifting - in terms of values and identity – ever further from its grasp.

A US politician flying for a short visit to a long-standing ally would in any other place be of little note.

But in Pelosi’s visit, the symbolism itself is substance.

Image source, Getty Images

It's night-time now in Taiwan, so plans are under way for what happens next in diplomatic moves on Wednesday.

Nancy Pelosi will meet Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in the morning, then fly out after lunch, the country's official central news agency says.

The hope from Taiwan's presidential office is that the visit will deepen its partnership with the US, Reuters reports.

It adds the aim is to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

China's Foreign Affairs Ministry has strongly condemned Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, calling it a "serious violation of the One-China principle" that will have a "severe impact" on the political foundation of China-US relations.

In a statement, the ministry said Pelosi's visit "seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity".

"It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence'", the ministry said.

China strongly urged the US to "stop playing the 'Taiwan card' and interfering in China's internal affairs", and to "not go further down the wrong and dangerous path".

You can read the statement in full here., external

China's People’s Liberation Army will conduct three-day live fire exercises starting from tomorrow, its state media has confirmed, with all civil ships and planes forbidden from entering the exercise regions.

China also suspended imports from 35 Taiwanese exporters of biscuits and pastries today, in a warning ahead of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

Biscuits and pastries are important trading items between Taiwan and China, including Hong Kong.

About two thirds of exports from Taiwan in 2021 were biscuits and pastries, with a total value of $646m, Taiwanese media reports. In 2020, the value reached $660m, accounting for 37% of the total export.

It is estimated that over 100 companies in Taiwan will be forced to stop doing business with China after the sanction became effective.