China sent dozens of warplanes, including fighter jets and bombers, toward Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, marking a forceful display days before the nation plans to hold military exercises aimed at defending itself against a possible invasion.
Taiwan is due to hold its annual Han Kuang drills starting tomorrow, during which its military is to hold combat readiness drills for preventing an invasion. It is also to conduct the annual Wan An drills aimed at preparing civilians for natural disasters and practicing evacuations in case of an air raid.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent 37 aircraft and seven navy vessels around Taiwan from 6am Friday to 6am yesterday, the ministry said in a statement. Among them were J-10 and J-16 fighters and H-6 bombers, and 22 of the detected warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone near its southern part, the statement said.
China held huge military drills in August last year in response to then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. It fired missiles over the nation in a significant escalation that disrupted trade lanes in the Taiwan Strait and forced airplanes to reroute flights.
In April this year, the PLA also held large-scale combat readiness drills in the air and sea around Taiwan in response to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in LA.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
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