Taiwan tests a missile capable of reaching Chinese cities

Moscow, February 8 – Taiwan’s Zhongshan Institute of Science and Technology has test-fired a cruise missile with a range of 1,200 kilometers — the distance to cities in eastern China, reports the South China Morning Post.

The surface-to-surface missile is a long-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE capable of hitting targets up to 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) away – far enough to reach major cities on the mainland, such as Qingdao in the east. Coast or Wuhan in the middle (countries – approx. ed.), ”said the publication.

At the end of January, the Taiwanese armed forces detected 31 aircraft and four ships of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army approaching the island.

The situation around Taiwan escalated in August following a visit to Taipei by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The People’s Republic of China does not recognize the sovereignty of the island and considers it its province and categorically opposes its contacts with officials and the military of other countries.

Official relations between the Chinese central government and Taiwan broke down in 1949, after the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang forces in a civil war with the Communist Party moved to the island. Commercial and informal contacts between Taiwan and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s.