HONG KONG, October 25. /TASS/. Taiwan’s Armed Forces registered the approach of 19 aircraft and six vessels of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) near the island in the past 24 hours, according to a statement published on the website of the island’s defense agency.
As many as six PLA aircraft "crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and flew into the island’s air defense identification zone in the northern, southeastern and southwestern parts of it," the statement reads. The latest mission involved a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft and a Y-8 maritime patrol aircraft, a TB-001 unmanned combat aerial vehicle, an H-6 strategic bomber, a KJ-500 early warning and control aircraft as well as a Z-9 anti-submarine helicopter.
According to the document, Taiwanese aircraft and warships were dispatched to warn away the Chinese warplanes, while ground-based missile defense systems were deployed to monitor them.
On September 18, Taiwan’s Armed Forces detected 103 PLA aircraft, or a record number since at least August 2022, near the island in a 24-hour span. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in an annual report earlier that PLA planes and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels have been crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entering the island’s air defense identification zone near the island much more frequently since early August 2022, when the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taipei.
Taiwan has been governed by its own administration since 1949, when the remnants of the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled there after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Beijing considers Taiwan a province of the People’s Republic of China.