Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had spotted 66 Chinese military aircraft around the island in a 24-hour period, the most so far this year, after a day earlier Beijing said it was conducting drills in nearby waters.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had spotted 66 Chinese military aircraft around the island in a 24-hour period, the most so far this year. A day earlier, Beijing said it was conducting drills in nearby waters. (AFP / Representative photo) {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}}
China, which maintains a near-daily military presence around Taiwan, claims the island as part of its territory and says it will never renounce the use of force to bring it under its control.
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Thursday’s recording came a day after Taiwan spotted a Chinese military aircraft near the island, which it said was heading to the western Pacific for exercises with the People’s Liberation Army’s aircraft carrier Shandong.
“By 6 a.m. today (2200 GMT Wednesday), 66 PLA aircraft and seven PLA Navy vessels were detected operating around Taiwan,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday, adding that it had “responded accordingly.”
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Fifty-six of the Chinese planes crossed the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait, the narrow 180-kilometer (110-mile) waterway that separates Taiwan from China.
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Illustrations released by both sides’ militaries across the Taiwan Strait showed some of the aircraft coming within 33 nautical miles (61 kilometers) of Taiwan’s southern tip.
The previous record this year was in May, when Beijing sent 62 military aircraft and 27 naval vessels around Taiwan.
The incident came amid military drills launched shortly after the inauguration of Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, whom the Chinese government considers a “dangerous separatist.”
Military expert Su Ziyun said China’s latest show of force was a response to recent political developments, including Taiwan’s de facto ambassador in Washington meeting with Taiwan on Wednesday to express support for the island.
“Beijing is pressuring Taiwan to express its dissatisfaction with the support Taiwan enjoys,” said Su, of the Taiwan Institute for Defense and Security Studies.
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Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Wednesday the Shandong had not passed through the “Bashi Channel”, a stretch of water off the southern tip of Taiwan through which Chinese ships normally pass on their way to the Pacific Ocean.
Instead, he said, the storm “moved further south through the Balintang Strait, heading toward the western Pacific Ocean,” a waterway just north of the Philippine island of Babuyan, about 250 kilometers south of Bashi Island.
Neighbouring Japan confirmed on Tuesday that four People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels, including the Shandong, were sailing in waters 520 kilometers southeast of Miyako Island.
Philippine military spokesman Aksan Ali said he had received reports of joint Chinese and Russian exercises in the Philippine Sea, but did not comment directly on the Shandong vessel.
– “Restricted Waters” –
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China has stepped up political and military pressure on Taiwan in recent years, sending record numbers of jets, drones and ships to the island and stepping up its insistence that “unification” is “inevitable”.
The previous record number of aircraft sightings around Taiwan was last September, when Beijing sent 103 military and aircraft.
Experts call this a “gray zone tactic” that, while it stops short of direct acts of war, helps wear down the island’s military.
Lai has made repeated overtures to China for dialogue, but they have been largely rejected.
In addition to flexing its military muscle, China has been sending coast guard vessels more frequently around Taiwan’s outlying islands this year.
Four China Coast Guard vessels “sailed into (Taiwan’s) waters” at 7 a.m. on Thursday, the coast guard said, adding that the ships left two hours later.
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Then, at 10 a.m., the four vessels “again sailed through several points in the restricted waters of Kinmen Island and our patrol boats immediately went forward to monitor,” before leaving around noon.
“So far this year, there have been 31 incursions into our national waters,” they said.
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