Four Chinese balloons on Tuesday drifted across the Taiwan Strait, with three of them crossing over Taiwan proper, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, following two more sightings the day before.
Tuesday’s balloons all drifted northeast and disappeared at 10:48am, 5:18pm, 7:01pm and 7:02pm, the ministry said.
They were floating at altitudes of 3,658m, 5,486m, 6,706m and 7,315m respectively, it said, adding that it was the ninth time Chinese balloons had been detected since last month.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
On Monday, two balloons were sighted, one of which crossed over Taiwan proper.
Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) did not say whether the military believed the latest balloons were for weather or espionage purposes, but the ministry has previously said that most Chinese balloons flying in the area were weather balloons.
The military closely monitors the balloons’ movements and informs civil aviation authorities, Sun said.
“The nation’s armed forces respond appropriately to unidentified balloons found entering Taiwan’s airspace based on the level of threat they pose to national security,” he said, without elaborating.
The ministry last year said that similar devices had been regularly detected around Taiwan, most often between the months of December and February, as seasonal winds bring the balloons closer to Taiwan.
The military does not believe the balloons are directly related to Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections, to be held on Saturday next week, Sun told a ministry news briefing on Tuesday last week.
Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the balloons are “for military coercion and psychological warfare.”
“The presidential election is coming and balloons are a kind of military intimidating tool,” he said, adding that China wants more “pro-Beijing votes.”
In the 24 hours ending at 6am yesterday, the ministry also detected nine Chinese People’s Liberation Army aircraft and four navy vessels operating near Taiwan.
Two of the aircraft — a Xian JH-7 bomber and a Harbin BZK-005 reconnaissance drone — crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait into the nation’s north and southwest air defense identification zone, the ministry said.
Beijing has in the past few years ramped up military and political pressure on the government of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and also refused to engage with her during her tenure.
It has sent an unprecedented number of warplanes and naval vessels around Taiwan, dubbed by military experts as “gray zone” tactics designed to intimidate Taiwanese.
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