HONG KONG, August 9. /TASS/. The Taiwanese military registered the approach of 18 aircraft of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and nine warships of the PLA Navy near the island in the past day, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said.

According to it, 12 aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and flew into the island’s air defense identification zone in the southwestern and south-eastern airspace of Taiwan.

Aircraft, vessels and ground-based air defense systems were dispatched by the Taiwanese Army to monitor them.

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.