TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit to Taipei on Aug. 2-3, the Chinese military is conducting a series of unprecedented live-fire drills in six zones around Taiwan from Aug. 4-7.

“This is the most provocative series of coercive measures taken by Beijing since the end of the civil war and the founding of the People’s Republic of China,” said Stephen Yates, former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, during a Fox Business segment on Cavuto Coast to Coast on Wednesday (Aug. 3).

“Definitely far exceeds what we saw in 1995 and (1996),” Yates said in reference to the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. The former deputy national security adviser also pointed out that two of the splash down zones for missile tests hem in Taiwan’s two largest ports, one in the north and the other in the south.

Yates also mentioned the cyberattacks launched by suspected Chinese hackers on Taiwan’s Presidential Office website, 7-Eleven convenience stores, and the Taiwan Railways Administration in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit. He pointed out that this stepped up Chinese pressure on Taiwan is likely to continue for some time.

“The question now is whether the United States sees the lack of ambiguity from Beijing as perhaps cause for the U.S. to be a little less ambiguous about its approach” to Taiwan and East Asia, Yates said, with respect to Washington’s long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity in regards to Taiwan.