 China sends fighter jets near Taiwan in latest show of force Taipei (AFP) May 11, 2018 - China sent fighter jets and other military aircraft near Taiwan Friday in the latest of a series of drills which Beijing has said are aimed at the island's "independence forces". Taiwan's defence ministry said multiple H-6K bombers, reconnaissance planes and transport aircraft flew over the Bashi Channel, south of Taiwan, and over the Miyako Strait, near Japan's Okinawa Island, in a drill Friday morning. It was the first time that China's Su-35 fighters were sent over the Bashi Channel, the ministry said, while J-11 fighters and early warning aircraft also took part. The ministry assured the public in a statement that it was able to fully monitor Chinese naval and air drills and "take effective responsive measures to ensure defence security". China sees democratically governed Taiwan -- which has never formally declared independence from the mainland -- as a renegade part of its territory to be brought back into the fold, and has not ruled out reunification by force. The Chinese defence ministry confirmed in a statement Friday that it was the first time Su-35s flew over the Bashi Channel, hailing it as a "new breakthrough, highlighting the new enhancements to the Air Force's combat capability". Beijing has stepped up military patrols around Taiwan and used diplomatic pressure to isolate it internationally since President Tsai Ing-wen, of the traditionally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, took office in 2016. Last month, China's air force said the series of operations were meant to "strengthen its capacity to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity". Defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly press conference that they were "directed against Taiwan independence forces and activities in the island". Taiwan has accused Beijing of "sabre rattling" and trying to stoke regional tensions with its recent spate of drills. Taipei has announced that it will practise thwarting a Chinese "invasion" in annual live fire drills in June by simulating surprise coastal assaults.
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US fighter jets intercepted two long-range Russian "Bear" bombers in international airspace off western Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Saturday.
The long-range Tupelev Tu-95 bombers were "intercepted and visually identified" Friday morning by a pair of F-22 Raptors as the Russian aircraft flew just north of Alaska's Aleutian islands, said Canadian Army Major Andrew Hennessy, of NORAD public affairs.
"At no time did the Russian bombers enter North American sovereign airspace," Hennessy said in a statement to AFP.
He added that the Alaska-based US jets monitored the Russians until the bombers left an area known as the Air Defense Identification Zone along the Aleutians, heading west.
That zone extends about 200 miles (322 kilometers) from the coastline, mostly in international airspace.
Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of NORAD, a joint US-Canadian command charged with aerospace warning and control for North America.
In April 2017, NORAD and the Pentagon said Tu-95 "Bear" bombers -- four-engine Cold War-era turboprop giants that can carry nuclear weapons -- were spotted in international airspace on three occasions -- twice near the Aleutians and once near mainland Alaska and Canada.
That was the first sighting of such Russian long-range bombers around Alaska in about two and a half years, a Pentagon spokesman said at the time.
- 'Unsafe' interception -
Tensions between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies are running at levels not seen since the Cold War.
The Alaska incident comes after a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet buzzed a US Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, US media reported, citing the US Navy.
Earlier, on January 29, the US Navy released video of a Russian Su-27 intercepting a US EP-3 Aries surveillance plane in international airspace over the Black Sea.
The interception, which lasted two hours and 40 minutes, was "unsafe" because the Russian jet was "closing to within five feet and crossing directly" through the surveillance plane's flight path, "causing the EP-3 to fly through the Su-27's jet wash," the US Navy said in a statement.
NATO naval officials in late 2017 also reported Russian submarines probing underseas data cables in the North Atlantic.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in January, as he unveiled the Pentagon's national defense strategy, that the United States is facing "growing threats" from Russia and China, and he warned that the US military's advantages have eroded in recent years.
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