The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense announced this between 6am on Sunday and 6am on Monday A total of 103 Chinese military aircraft took off from China and headed to the island of Taiwan. 40 of these crossed the “dividing line” between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, but returned before any incident occurred between the armed forces of the two organizations that call themselves China.
The Chinese Air Force regularly conducts similar “exercises”, but there has never been an example of such a large number of aircraft being used at the same time.
The purpose of the show of force was clearly to “drive” China to Taiwan. The island cooperates more closely with the United States economically and militarily. By the way, the United States does not have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, yet the island depends almost exclusively on the United States for its arms supplies.
Taiwan described the incident as “harassment” and warned that such “destructive military activities may lead to escalation.”
Cover photo source: Jia Tianyong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images
