In One Day, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense Tracked 13 Aircraft Near the Island

Beijing, April 8 – Over the past day, the Taiwan Armed Forces recorded 13 aircraft and three ships of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army approaching the island, according to the daily report of the Taiwan Ministry of Defense.

It is noteworthy that the Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, the Su-30 multi-role fighter and two J-16 fighters crossed the so-called “middle line” of the Taiwan Strait.

The ministry said Taiwan had sent air and sea patrols to monitor the situation and deployed ground-based missile systems.

The situation around Taiwan escalated dramatically after a visit to the island in early August last year by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this move the United States’ support for Taiwanese separatism, and conducted large-scale military exercises.

Official relations between the central government of the People’s Republic of China and its island province ceased in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT forces were defeated in a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, and moved to Taiwan. Commercial and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties have started contacting through NGOs – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relationships Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.