SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Chinese military aircraft cross into Taiwan airspace: Taipei
Taipei, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2020
Taiwan said it scrambled fighter jets Monday after Chinese military aircraft briefly crossed into its airspace, the first major incursion since the island's Beijing-wary president was re-elected in January.

Taiwan's defence ministry said Chinese H-6 bombers and accompanying aircraft briefly crossed over a "median line" in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen lashed out at Beijing for taking "meaningless and unnecessary" moves when it should be containing a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

The virus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has killed more than 900 people and has spread to Taiwan and other countries.

"I want to remind the Chinese government that it's not only meaningless but also unnecessary to make military moves at the time of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak," she said in a Facebook post.

Monday's incursion came after Chinese H-6 bombers and J-11 fighters flew close to Taiwan on Sunday but did not cross the median line, according to Taipei's defence ministry.

"For the second day, #PLAAF combat aircraft flew close to #Taiwan... Listen, H-6 bombers are useless against #Coronavirus," Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said in a tweet.

The incursion was only the second time Chinese aircraft crossed the largely respected line dividing the two sides in the strait since March last year.

The aircraft returned to Chinese airspace after "our fighter jets took appropriate responsive and interceptive measures and broadcast warnings to leave", the ministry said in a statement.

It did not specify how many and what type of Chinese aircraft had crossed the median line.

Last March, two Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossed over the line for the first time in years, prompting Taipei to accuse Beijing of violating a long-held tacit agreement in a "reckless and provocative" move.

China has ramped up the number of fighter and warship crossings near Taiwan or through the strait since Tsai was first elected in 2016.

Her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China".

In December, shortly before elections, a newly commissioned Chinese aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait for a second time.

The Shandong, China's first domestically built carrier, also traversed the strait in November, sparking concerns from Washington's de facto embassy in Taiwan.

Tsai won a second term in a landslide in January in an outcome seen as a forceful rebuke of Beijing's ongoing campaign to isolate the island.

China still sees the self-ruling democratic island as part of its territory and vows to one day seize it, by force if necessary.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Trump shifts priority to Moon mission, not Mars
The Quantum Age will be Powered by Fusion
BlackSky accelerates Gen-3 satellite into full commercial service in three weeks

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Conventional photon entanglement reveals thousands of hidden topologies in high dimensions
Philosopher argues AI consciousness may remain unknowable
Introducing the SEVEN Class A Thermopile Pyranometer

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Defence of Europe's eastern flank an 'immediate' priority: eight EU leaders
Trump signs $900 bn defense policy bill into law as Admin plans major DoD changes
PM Takaichi says Japan 'always open' to dialogue with China

24/7 News Coverage
Bible 1.0: How Ancient Canon Became Our First Large Language Models
Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like
Deep ocean quakes linked to Antarctic phytoplankton surges



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.