TAIPEI: Taiwan struck a defiant tone on Wednesday as it hosted US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with a furious China gearing up for military exercises dangerously close to the island`s shores in retaliation for the visit.

As the tension is mounting in the region, Southeast Asian nations urged restraint over Taiwan after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi`s visit to the island prompted an enraged China to vow `punishment`.

Pelosi landed in Taiwan on Tuesday despite a series of increasingly stark threats from Beijing,which views the island as its territory and had said it would consider the visit a major provocation.

China responded swiftly, announcing what it said were `necessary and just` military drills in the seas just off Taiwan`s coast some of the world`s busiest waterways.

`In the current struggle surrounding Pelosi`s Taiwan visit, the United States are the provocateurs, China is the victim,` Beijing`s foreign ministry said.

But Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said the island of 23 million would not be cowed. `Facing deliberately heightened military threat s, Taiwan will not back down.

We will... continue to hold the line of defence for democracy,` Tsai said at an event with Pelosi in Taipei.

She also thanked the 82-year-oldUS lawmaker for `taking concrete actions to show your staunch support for Taiwan at this critical moment`.

China tries to keep Taiwan isolated on the world stage and opposes countries having ofhcial exchanges with Taipei.

Pelosi, second in line to the presidency, is the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.

`Today, our delegation... came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan,` she said at the event with Tsai.

She added her group had come `in friendship to Taiwan` and `in peace to the region` Before leaving Taiwan, Pelosi also met several dissidents who have previously been in the crosshairs of China`s wrath includingTiananmen protest student leader Wu`er Kaixi.

Asean FMs` meeting Pelosi`s dramatic trip to Taipei overshadowed a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)foreign ministersinPhnom Penh, which had been expected to focus on the bloody crisis engulfing Myanmar.

Asean spokesman Kung Phoak, Cambodia`s deputy foreign minister, said ministers at the closed-door talks meeting face to face for the first time since the pandemic had expressed concern over growing tension in the Taiwan Strait.

`We hope that all sides will try their best to deescalate the tension there, avoid actions that may contribute to the escalation of tension and engage in dialogue,` Kung Phoak told reporters. -AFP