Taipei: Chinese military aircraft cross into Taiwan airspace
TAIPEI: Taiwan said it scrambled fighter jets yesterday after Chinese military aircraft briefly crossed into its airspace, the first major incursion since the island’s Beijing-wary president was reelected in January.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said Chinese H-6 bomber and accompanying aircraft briefly crossed over a ‘median line’ in the Taiwan Strait
It was only the second time Chinese aircraft crossed the largely respected line dividing the two sides in the strait since March last year.
The aircraft returned to Chinese airspace after ‘our fighter jets took appropriate responsive and interceptive measures and broadcast warnings to leave’, the ministry said in a statement.
It did not specify how many and what type of Chinese aircraft had crossed the median line.
Last March, two Chinese J11 fighter jets crossed over the line for the first time in years, prompting Taipei to accuse Beijing of violating a long-held tacit agreement in a ‘reckless and provocative’ incursion.
China has ramped up the number of fighter and warship crossings near Taiwan or through the strait since President Tsai Ing-wen was first elected in 2016.
Her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of ‘one China’.