NEW YORK, February 13. /TASS/. Taiwanese armed forces reserve the right to shoot down China’s balloons if they consider them posing a threat, Sun Li-fang, a spokesman for the island’s defense ministry, told Bloomberg on Monday.

"The ministry has rules in terms of response and will continue revising the rules in a timely manner to respond to new threats such as balloons," he said in a phone call with the news service.

According to high-ranking unidentified Taiwanese official, the island’s military usually send planes to monitor Chinese balloons. He also asserted that such balloons usually perform military missions.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesman was commenting in response to a Financial Times story that on Sunday cited Taiwanese officials as saying that Chinese balloons regularly intruded into the island’s airspace.