Hong Kong: China sent 25 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the largest breach of that space since the island began regularly reporting such activity in September, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.
The Chinese flights came a day after the US secretary of state warned Beijing that Washington was committed to the defense of the democratic, self-governed island, which China considers part of its sovereign territory.
The 25 planes dispatched by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces included 14 J-16 fighter jets, four J-10 fighter jets, four H-6K bombers, two anti-submarine warfare planes and an airborne early warning and control plane, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.
Taiwan responded by scrambling combat aircraft, alerting missile defense systems and issuing radio warnings to the Chinese planes that they had entered the southwestern corner of the island’s self-declared air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a ministry statement said.
A graphic supplied by the ministry showed flight tracks for the Chinese aircraft coming from and returning toward the Chinese mainland, making 180-degree turns between the main Taiwanese island and Pratas Island, southeast of Hong Kong.
Taiwan began posting regular updates on PLA flights near the island last September. Before Monday, the largest number of Chinese warplanes to enter Taiwan’s ADIZ was 20jetsonMarch 26.
The US Federal Aviation Administration defines an ADIZ as “a designated area of airspace over land or water within which a country requires the immediate and positive identification, location, and air traffic control of aircraft in the interest of the country’s national security.”
Chinese planes have been making almost daily incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ in recent weeks, as tensions heat up between Beijing and Taipei’s main supporter, the United States.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, even though the democratic island of almost 24 million people has been governed separately for more than seven decades.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that Beijing will never allow Taiwan to become formally independent and has refused to rule out the use of force, if necessary, to unify the island with the mainland. CNN
