China flew a record number of fighter jets and other warplanes around Taiwan during its large-scale military drills on Monday, the island\u2019s Defense Ministry said. <\/p>\n
The one-day military exercises, which involved Chinese fighter jets, drones, warships and Coast Guard vessels simulating a blockade of the self-governing island, was condemned by Taiwan as an \u201cunreasonable provocation\u201d and is the latest in a series of recent war games conducted by Beijing against its neighbor. <\/p>\n
According to the ministry, 153 Chinese aircraft were detected around Taiwan in a 25-hour period between Monday and Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Of those, 111 warplanes crossed the Median Line \u2013 an informal demarcation point in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing does not recognize, but until recent years had largely respected \u2013 and entered Taiwan\u2019s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). <\/p>\n
An ADIZ is unilaterally imposed and distinct from sovereign airspace, which is defined under international law as extending 12 nautical miles from a territory\u2019s shoreline. No Chinese warplanes were spotted entering Taiwan\u2019s sovereign airspace, a step that would be considered a major escalation. <\/p>\n
While not directly comparable, the spike in Chinese warplanes on Monday superseded the previous daily record in September 2023, when 103 Chinese military aircraft were detected operating around Taiwan in a 24-hour span. <\/p>\n
In response to the latest incursions, Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry said it employed its own aircraft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems to monitor the activity. <\/p>\n
China said its military drills were intended as a \u201cstern waning\u201d to independence forces in Taiwan and came days after the island\u2019s new president, Lai Ching-te, gave a speech vowing to protect Taiwan\u2019s sovereignty in the face of challenges from Beijing. <\/p>\n
Taiwan \u201cis not subordinate\u201d to China, Lai said on Taiwan\u2019s National Day Thursday, and Beijing \u201cdoes not have the right to represent Taiwan.\u201d <\/p>\n
China\u2019s military exercises around Taiwan, a democracy of 24 million people, have become increasingly frequent in recent years and have tended to coincide with events that have angered Beijing. <\/p>\n
Those drills allow China to monitor Taiwan\u2019s responses and also tax the island\u2019s own military resources including its aging and outgunned fleet of fighter jets. <\/p>\n
Analysts said Monday\u2019s drills were part of a general strategy of both keeping Taiwan under pressure and normalizing regular war games. <\/p>\n
The ruling Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it. It has long vowed that the island must be \u201cunified\u201d with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary, while the Taiwanese authorities strongly reject China\u2019s territorial claims over it. Many people on the island view themselves as distinctly Taiwanese. <\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Liberation Army said the drills were a joint operation of the army, navy, air force and rocket force, and were conducted in the Taiwan Strait \u2013 a narrow body of water separating the island from mainland China \u2013 as well as encircling Taiwan. <\/p>\n
A map released by the Eastern Theater Command showed drills taking place in nine areas surrounding Taiwan as well as its outlying islands that are closer to mainland China. <\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry added that 14 warships were detected around Taiwan over the same 25-hour period. Among them was the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, which moved into a location to the east of the island. <\/p>\n
During the military exercise, none of China\u2019s naval vessels successfully entered Taiwan\u2019s contiguous zone, which is defined under international law as extending 24 nautical miles from a territory\u2019s shoreline, the ministry said in a press conference on Monday evening. <\/p>\n
Analysts, however, said the drills were \u201chighly dangerous,\u201d and because they are \u201capproaching, closer and closer,\u201d will \u201cleave us [with] a very short response time.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Chinese military said it kicked off the Joint Sword 2024-B drills at 5 a.m. local time Monday. By 6 p.m. an updated statement announced that it had \u201csuccessfully\u201d completed the exercises. <\/p>\n
According to a flight map provided by Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry, Chinese jets were detected around the island after China\u2019s announcement that it had wrapped up its war games. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China flew a record number of fighter jets and other warplanes around Taiwan during its large-scale military drills on Monday, the island\u2019s Defense Ministry said. The one-day military exercises, which involved Chinese fighter jets, drones, warships and Coast Guard vessels simulating a blockade of the self-governing island, was condemned by Taiwan as an \u201cunreasonable provocation\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}