Taiwan on Saturday accused China of incursion saying 42 of the mainland’s warplanes crossed the island’s air defense zone during its military exercise.
Twenty-six of the warplanes involved crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the island’s ministry of defense said in a statement.
Eight vessels also participated in the drills, which Chinese state media said were intended to simulate “real combat conditions.”
“The National Army is… monitoring and using reconnaissance methods to strictly control (the situation),” Taiwan’s defense ministry said, adding that it had dispatched aircraft and ships.
China launched joint air and sea patrols and military exercises of the navy and air force around the island of Taiwan in response to Taiwan’s Vice President William Lai’s stopovers in the United States — in New York en route to Paraguay and in San Francisco when returning to Taipei.
The stopovers angered Beijing and it called Lai, the frontrunner in Taiwan’s presidential election next year, a troublemaker.
The drills were intended to serve as “a stern warning to the collusion of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists with foreign elements and their provocations,” state media outlet Xinhua reported.
Taiwan’s foreign minister accused China on Saturday of trying to “shape” Taiwan’s upcoming election with the military exercises.
“The PRC has made it clear it wants to shape Taiwan’s coming national election,” foreign minister Joseph Wu said on the ministry’s official X account.
“Well, it’s up to our citizens to decide, not the bully next door.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns in the strongest terms China’s authoritarian government’s brutal efforts to interfere in the election,” it said.
China especially dislikes Lai, as he has been previously outspoken about Taiwan’s status. Like the current President Tsai Ing-wen, Lai does not accept China’s view that Taiwan belongs to it.
WITH AFP