China continued it saber rattling with another aerial incursion across the Taiwan Strait late this week, according to the island nation’s defense ministry.
The ministry, which provides daily updates on Chinese activity in the area, said during its Friday update that the latest incident included more than a dozen Chinese planes.
Taiwan said 14 “military aircraft” crossed over to Taiwan’s side of the Taiwan Strait, at one point getting as close as 41 nautical miles — about 47 standard miles — to the the city of Keelung, the location of a major Taiwanese naval base.
The previous day, Taiwan said China had conducted a “joint combat readiness patrol,” crossing a line over the water separating Taiwan from mainland China that had served as a de facto boundary between the two nations for years, according to Reuters.
China has repeatedly said that it does not recognize that boundary, as it claims Taiwan as its territory.
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Meanwhile, China announced that it had conducted “combat drills with landing craft,” the outlet reported.
Taiwan said that the drills were the second carried out by China that week.
“On Thursday, the Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army, which is responsible for the area around Taiwan, showed pictures on its WeChat social media account of ships carrying out what it called live combat landing drills,” Reuters reported.
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“The vanguard of the landing team are always ready to fight,” it said in a post accompanying the images, which showed what Reuters described as “ship-mounted guns opening fire and operating in formation.”
China did not give any details about the time or location of the drills, and did not answer calls from Reuters seeking comment, as China was celebrating its Labor Day holiday.
Tensions have been escalating between China and Taiwan, especially since Taiwan elected Lai Ching-te as its next president in January.
Lai is scheduled to be inaugurated on May 20, and “has long faced Beijing’s wrath for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty,” CNN reported following his election.
“Taiwan National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen said China had begun using unusual new tactics, including staging night time combat patrols and using landing ships and minesweepers in those patrols,” Reuters reported.
Its Coast Guard has also stepped up patrols near Taiwans’ Kinmen Islands, near mainland China’s coast, a move Taiwan has labeled an attempt at intimidation.
Lai’s election has done nothing to reduce tensions in the area, particularly as Chinese President Xi Jinping is considered “China’s most assertive leader in a generation,” according to CNN.
Under Xi, China has increasingly pressured Taiwan militarily, but also through diplomatic and economic means, CNN noted.
“Tensions across the Taiwan Strait are at their highest since 1996,” the outlet noted, “when China fired missiles into waters off Taiwan’s coast to intimidate voters ahead of the island’s first free presidential election – after the nascent democracy emerged from decades of its own authoritarian rule.”
Fox News reported Monday that China had threatened “resolute and forceful steps” after President Joe Biden signed legislation providing billions in military aide to allies in southeast Asia, including Taiwan, and forcing Chinese company ByteDance to sell the popular social media app TikTok for face a ban in the U.S.
“This package gravely infringes upon China’s sovereignty. It includes large military aid to Taiwan, which seriously violates the one-China principle … and sends a seriously wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a briefing Monday, according to Fox.
“The legislation undermines the principles of market economy and fair competition by wantonly going after other countries’ companies in the name of ‘national security,’ which once again reveals the U.S.’s hegemonic and bullying nature,” he added.
