Wednesday, February 1, 2023 | 8:45 a.m.
The Taiwan Ministry of Defense denounced this Wednesday the incursion of 34 combat aircraft and nine Chinese Army ships that approached its air and sea space, as they have been doing repeatedly in recent weeks.
“34 aircraft and nine boats have been detected around Taiwan at 6:00 a.m. (local time) today,” read a statement from the Taiwanese Armed Forces, where they denounced that, of the total, 20 had entered the identification zone. of air defense to the southwest of Taiwan.
The Taiwan Armed Forces monitored the situation and assigned CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond to these aggressions by the Chinese regime.
This new incursion by China comes as Beijing prepares a possible blockade or direct attack on Taiwan, which has aroused great concern among the military leaders of the United States, Taipei’s main ally.
In a memo last month, US Air Force General Mike Minihan instructed his officers to prepare for a US-China conflict in the year 2025.
China has sent warships, bombers, fighters and support planes into the airspace near Taiwan on an almost daily basis, hoping to wear down the island’s limited defense resources and undermine support for pro-independence President Tsai Ing-wen.
Chinese fighters have also engaged US and allied military planes in the international airspace of the South China and East China Seas, calling it dangerous and threatening maneuvers by Beijing.
The escalation of tensions in the region began with the trip to the island of the then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, in August of last year.
China has repeatedly threatened to retaliate against countries seeking closer ties with Taiwan, but its bullying attempts have sparked backlash in Europe, Japan, the United States and other nations.
Taiwan has had an independent government since 1949, but China considers the territory under its sovereignty. The fundamental policy of the Xi Jinping regime towards Taiwan has so far been one of peaceful reunification under the “one country, two systems” principle.
Taipei will hold presidential elections next year, in contrast to China’s system of total control by president and party general secretary Xi Jinping, which has removed term limits on becoming leader for life.
On January 13, seven planes and three Chinese military ships carried out incursions in areas around Taiwan, the island’s Defense Ministry reported at the time.
The ministry notified on the social network Twitter that two of the Chinese planes crossed the median line of the Strait of Formosa, an unofficial border tacitly respected by Taipei and Beijing in recent decades, but which has been crossed in recent months by Chinese forces through these kinds of breakouts.
An SU-30 fighter and a Chinese Army BZK-005 reconnaissance plane were the planes that exceeded the median line.
According to the ministry, the island’s military monitored the situation with naval and combat air patrols and ground-based missile systems to scare off Chinese planes from the Taiwanese Air Identification Zone (ADIZ), which is not defined or regulated by any international treaty and is not equivalent to its airspace.
On December 26, Taipei denounced the presence of 71 Chinese planes in the vicinity of the island, in an air deployment of an unprecedented scale around Taiwan.
