Sixty-three Chinese incursions into waters and airspace around Taiwan were detected in the 24 hours to 6am yesterday, with 38 craft crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entering the nation’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.
The activity represented a ramp-up of Beijing’s “gray zone” warfare directed at Taiwan over the past two days, the ministry said.
A wave of 31 Chinese craft, consisting of fighters, fighter-bombers and uncrewed aerial vehicles, was tracked from 5:45am to 7:50am on Thursday, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
In an apparent act of provocation, 13 of them crossed the median line before flying outside the nation’s territorial waters to enter the eastern identification zone, it said.
Another 22 of a similar composition were tracked from 6:20am to 3:54pm on Thursday in Taiwan’s southwestern identification zone, all of which crossed the median line, the ministry said.
A lone fighter was tracked in the northern zone from 7:50am to 12:10pm, it said.
The armed forces responded to the movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and ship movements by deploying fighters and warships, and alerting air and coast defense missile units, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, an unidentified PLA aircraft was spotted flying from the East China Sea to airspace between Taiwan proper and Japan’s Yonaguni Island, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement yesterday.
The aircraft loitered off Hualien County, it said, adding that a Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter was deployed to surveil it.
The Chinese aircraft in the Japanese statement was not in the MND’s count.
Taiwan’s armed forces from 6am on Wednesday to 6am on Thursday tracked 15 PLA aircraft around Taiwan proper, with 14 entering Taiwan’s northern defense zone, the MND said.
Seven warships and one other Chinese government vessel were active in waters near Taiwan proper, it added.
China continues to escalate its harassment of Taiwan’s air and sea space, showing that Beijing is the true troublemaker in the Indo-Pacific region, it said.
The rise in Chinese military activity coincided with former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Taiwan and preceded a planned visit to Japan by the Royal Navy’s Prince of Wales aircraft carrier.
Beijing and Moscow earlier this month began a joint naval exercise in waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, with warships sailing in La Perouse Strait to the north of Japan and the Miyako Strait to its south.
It is not known if the Chinese and Russian fleets would sail around Japan as they did last year.
Additional reporting by Aaron Tu
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