Taiwan scrambles jets as mainland Chinese air force flies around island
- Beijing says patrol was necessary action while Taipei says it was a threat to regional peace and stability
Taiwan’s air force scrambled on Sunday to intercept jets from mainland China that flew around the island.
Beijing said the flight was a “necessary action” under “current security situation across the Taiwan Strait”.
Taipei’s defence ministry described the People’s Liberation Army’s patrol as a threat to regional peace and stability.
Beijing has been flying what it calls “island encirclement” drills on and off since 2016 when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen first took office.
Beijing maintains that the self-governed island, which broke away in 1949 after the civil war, remains part of China, and that Tsai, who was re-elected last month, wishes to push the island’s formal independence. She says Taiwan is an independent country called the Republic of China, its official name.
In a statement, the island’s defence ministry said the mainland’s J-11 fighters and H-6 bombers flew into the Bashi Channel to the south of Taiwan, then out into the Pacific before heading back to base via the Miyako Strait, located between Japan’s islands of Miyako and Okinawa, to the northeast of Taiwan.