Around 43 Chinese military aircraft and eight naval vessels were detected around the Taiwan Strait over the 24 hours through Thursday morning, including fighter jets, drones, and helicopters, reported Taiwan News.
According to a Taiwanese Defense Ministry statement, 34 of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and entered the southwestern and eastern air defense identification zone between 6:00 a.m. Wednesday and 6:00 a.m. Thursday local-time.
The median line of the Taiwan Strait has functioned for many years as a de facto maritime border, Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, a self-declared area in which a country reserves the right to identify, locate and control approaching foreign aircraft, is not considered territorial airspace under international law.
Taiwan sent combat patrol aircraft and naval vessels and deployed land-based air defense missile systems to monitor the PLA activity.
So far this month, the ministry has tracked 366 Chinese milit
ary aircraft and 200 ships, since September 2020, Beijing has increased its use of “gray zone tactics” by operating military aircraft and naval ships around Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned China’s test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on the previous day, saying the exercise is “threatening regional peace.” The ministry expressed its “stern condemnation for China’s continued military actions in the region that threaten the peaceful status quo,” urging China to be rational and exercise self-restraint.
It pledged that Taiwan would continue to cooperate with like-minded countries to curb the expansion of authoritarianism and jointly maintain peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, the PLA Rocket Force launched an ICBM carrying a “dummy warhead” that landed in the “high seas in the Pacific Ocean” on Wednesday.
Source: Kuwait News Agency
