Taiwan said it detected 30 Chinese military aircrafts around the island nation on Wednesday, its defence ministry said.
This comes a day after China’s air force and navy staged another large-scale drill involving fighters, bombers and warships to Taiwan’s south and southwest on Tuesday, the island’s defence ministry said, as Beijing keeps up its military pressure on Taipei.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has over the past three years regularly sent warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, to try and force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty.
China staged war games around Taiwan last August and again in April, and has since August also regularly flown military aircraft across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which had previously served as an unofficial barrier between the two.
Taiwan’s defence ministry, in a statement Wednesday, said that in the past 24 hours.
It had detected 32 Chinese air force planes entering the island’s ADIZ. A mixture of fighter jets, helicopters and early warning aircraft, among others.
That included four nuclear-capable H-6 bombers which flew to Taiwan’s south. And into the Pacific before heading back to China, according to a map the ministry provided.
Taiwan sent its own aircraft and ships to monitor the Chinese activities, the ministry added.
The ADIZ is a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols to give its forces more time to respond to threats.
China has not commented on these drills nor others over the past month or so which Taiwan has reported.