HONG KONG /XIANGGANG/, May 15. /TASS/. Taiwan has reported the approach of six Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and five People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships in the region adjacent to the island, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter on Monday.

According to the statement, "six PLA aircraft and five PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected at 6 a.m. (1 a.m. Moscow time — TASS) today."

It specified that the island’s armed forces were monitoring the situation, and instructed the operators of the aircraft, vessels and ground-based missile systems to respond to those actions.

PLAN vessels have been patrolling the waters near the island regularly amid tensions in the Taiwan Strait that escalated after former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei early last August. China criticized the high-level visit as a provocation, interpreting it as interference in its internal affairs and support for Taiwanese separatists.

Taiwan, China’s largest island, has been governed by its local administration since 1949. Official Beijing considers Taiwan a province of the People’s Republic of China. Washington remains Taipei’s key supplier of weapons and military hardware.