Taiwan’s armed forces recorded 35 aircraft and 15 ships of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) approaching the island within 24 hours, according to a statement from the Taiwanese defense ministry.
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“As of 6:00 on October 27 (around Taiwan), 35 aircraft and 15 ships of the People’s Liberation Army of China were detected,” a statement published on the official website of the department says.
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It is indicated that 23 aircraft of the Chinese army entered the island’s air defense identification zone, including a Y-8 ASW anti-submarine aircraft, a JH-7 fighter-bomber, six J-10 fighters, six J-16 fighters, four J-11 fighters, and a Z helicopter -9 ASW, CH-4 reconnaissance drone.
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According to the island’s defense ministry, Taiwan sent air and sea patrols to monitor the situation, and also deployed ground-based missile systems.
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The situation around Taiwan worsened significantly after the visit of then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to the island in early August last year. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this step US support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between the central government of the PRC and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in the civil war with the Communist Party of China, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
