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<\/div>\nChina claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day. (Representational)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Taipei, Taiwan: <\/b><\/p>\n
More than 30 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defence zone over the course of about six hours, the island’s defence ministry said Thursday, a sharp ramp-up in single-day incursions by China’s military.<\/p>\n
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day — by force if necessary.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Beijing has intensified aerial incursions into the island’s air defence identification zone — nearly doubling the air sorties in 2022 compared to the year before.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence spokesman Sun Li-fang announced Thursday that from 5 am local time (2100 GMT), “a total of 37 Chinese military aircrafts” entered Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ.<\/p>\n
“Some continued… towards the Western Pacific for long-range reconnaissance training,” Sun said at around 11 am.<\/p>\n
While not the largest number of incursions this year — that would be 45 sorties on April 9 — Thursday’s surge occurred over a much more compressed time frame.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s ADIZ is much larger than its airspace, overlaps with part of China’s ADIZ and even includes some of the mainland.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s military is “monitoring the situation closely”, the ministry said on Twitter, adding that patrol planes, naval vessels and land-based missile systems have been dispatched in response.<\/p>\n
They did not clarify if the incursions were ongoing.<\/p>\n
Analysts say China’s increased probing of Taiwan’s defence zone is part of wider “grey-zone” tactics that keep the island pressured.<\/p>\n
The incursions came a day after the United States, the Philippines and Japan completed their first-ever joint coastguard drills in the flashpoint South China Sea — which Beijing claims almost entirely.<\/p>\n
A surge in warplanes and naval exercises by China’s military around Taiwan usually coincides with Taipei making diplomatic engagements with other countries.<\/p>\n
China lashes out at any diplomatic action that appears to treat Taiwan as a sovereign nation and has reacted with growing assertiveness to any joint military exercises around the island or visits by Western politicians.<\/p>\n
In April, Beijing conducted three days of military exercises simulating a blockade of the island in response to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-wen meeting in California.<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n