KATHMANDU: Chinese military aircraft briefly entered Taiwan’s airspace, the first major incursion since the island’s Beijing-wary president was re-elected in January, prompting Taiwan to scramble its jet fighters recently.
Chinese H-6 bombers and accompanying aircraft briefly crossed over a “median line” in the Taiwan strait, The Guardian quoted Taiwan’s defense ministry as saying.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, lashed out at Beijing for taking “meaningless and unnecessary” military moves saying that the novel virus which broke out in Wuhan City of China has spread across the world killing thousands of people.
“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 posting on Facebook.
According to reports, Chinese aircraft crossed the largely respected line dividing the two sides in the strait before it returned to Chinese airspace after Taiwanese fighter jets “took appropriate responsive and interceptive measures and broadcast warnings to leave”.
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.
Likewise, in last December, shortly before elections, a newly commissioned Chinese aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan strait for a second time.
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” while China still views the self-ruling democratic island as part of its territory and vows to one day seize it, by force if necessary.
Tsai won a second term in a landslide victory in January, an outcome seen as a forceful rebuke of Beijing’s campaign to isolate Taiwan.
(With inputs from Agencies )
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