Chinese military operations near the island resumed on Friday, according to Taiwan’s defence ministry, with 13 planes flying into Taiwan’s “response” zone and five ships conducting battle readiness patrols.
For the past three years, Beijing’s heightened military pressure has been a source of grievance for China, which regards democratically run Taiwan as its own territory.
In retaliation for Vice President William Lai’s quick visits to the United States earlier this month, China conducted a day of drills surrounding Taiwan on Saturday.
Although it provided no additional information, the ministry claimed that beginning at around 7 a.m. (2300 GMT), it had identified 22 Chinese aircraft, including fighters, bombers, early warning aircraft, and drones, of which 13 entered Taiwan’s “response” zone.
According to Taiwan, ships and aircraft were despatched to observe the icursion by China.
Taiwan does not make public the location of its “response” zone, although it keeps a careful eye on the Taiwan Strait and the region to the south and southwest of the island, where Chinese military activity is frequently concentrated.
Since Saturday, China has not publicised any additional drills surrounding Taiwan, despite the fact that it often conducts such operations without announcing them either before or after.
This week, Taiwan’s defence ministry stated that it was unable to determine whether China’s drills, which began on Saturday, had officially ended because Beijing had not made any announcements. Though on a smaller scale, China has resumed its military operations near Taiwan.
The ministry reported seeing two Chinese drones in the vicinity of northern Taiwan during the previous day in a separate statement released on Friday morning.
According to the report, both aircraft crossed the strait’s median line, which up until last year served as an informal border between the two sides but is now frequently crossed by Chinese aircraft.
One of the drones, designated by the ministry as a BZK-005, flew northeast of Taiwan before crossing the median line opposite the island’s northwest coast.
Taiwan has not reported any Chinese military aircraft in its airspace, but it has claimed that aircraft had flown within 24 nautical miles (44 km) of the island’s contiguous zone.
