Last Thursday, 37 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence zone. - Reuters
TAIPEI, June 11 (Reuters/AFP): Taiwan’s air force scrambled into action on Sunday after spotting 10 Chinese warplanes crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
The island’s Defence Ministry said four Chinese ships also carried out combat patrols, but gave no further details.
This is the second time in less than a week that Taiwan has reported renewed Chinese military activity.
Last Thursday, 37 Chinese military aircraft flew into the island’s air defence zone. Some of them then flew over the western Pacific.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day – by force if necessary.
Over the past three years, Beijing has regularly flown its air force planes near the island, though not into Taiwan’s airspace.
In a short statement, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said that as at 2pm on Sunday, it had detected 24 Chinese air force planes, including J-10, J-11, J-16 and Su-30 fighters, as well as H-6 bombers.
It did not specify where the aircraft flew but said 10 had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which separates the two sides and had previously served as an unofficial barrier.
China says it does not recognise that separating line and has been routinely crossing it since 2022.
Taiwan sent up its own fighters and deployed ships and land-based missile systems to keep watch, it said, using typical wording for how it responds to such Chinese activities.
China’s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It has not commented on last Thursday’s flights.
China has previously said such missions are to protect the country’s sovereignty and target “collusion” between Taiwan and the United States, the island’s most important international backer and arms seller.
In April, China held war games around Taiwan following a trip to the US by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.
Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.
In a Sunday video address to supporters on the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands close to the Chinese coast, Taiwan’s Vice-President William Lai said he would do his best to “stabilise the peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait” if he wins the presidency, his campaign office said.
Mr Lai is running as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate.
Ms Tsai cannot run again due to term limits. She has repeatedly offered to hold talks with China but has been rebuffed as Beijing views her and her party as separatists.
In recent years, Beijing has intensified aerial incursions into the island’s air defence identification zone (Adiz) – nearly doubling the air sorties in 2022 compared with the year before.
While not the largest number of incursions in 2023 – that would be 45 sorties on April 9 – last Thursday’s surge occurred over a much more compressed timeframe.
Taiwan’s Adiz is much larger than its airspace, overlaps with part of China’s Adiz and even includes some of the mainland.
Analysts say China’s increased probing of Taiwan’s defence zone is part of wider “grey-zone” tactics that keep the island pressured.
The incursions came a day after the United States, the Philippines and Japan completed their first-ever joint coast guard drills in the flashpoint South China Sea – which Beijing claims almost entirely.
A surge in warplane and naval exercises by China’s military around Taiwan usually coincides with Taipei making diplomatic engagements with other countries.
It was reported earlier on Sunday that Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang would make a rare high-level ministerial trip to Britain this week, where she is expected to visit government departments and a company specialising in low-earth orbit satellites.
China lashes out at any diplomatic action that appears to treat Taiwan as a sovereign nation and has reacted with growing assertiveness to any joint military exercises around the island or visits by Western politicians.
In April, Beijing conducted three days of military exercises simulating a blockade of the island in response to a meeting between US Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Ms Tsai in California.
Ms Laura Rosenberger, the chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, which manages the unofficial relationship between Washington and Taipei, visited Taiwan last Monday and met senior Taiwanese officials. - Reuters/AFP
