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China on Tuesday carried 28 military aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense buffer zone, in its largest incursion to date, according to Taipei officials, an action that took place as Beijing continues to express anger at the country’s warnings. Westerners and their allies on their military pressure on the island.
The flights included 20 fighter jets and four nuclear-capable bombers, along with anti-submarine warfare and early warning aircraft, the Taiwanese air force said in a statement. Previously, the largest raid had included 25 Chinese military aircraft in a single day in April.
The deal came after the G7’s developed economies group issued a final statement on Sunday following its UK summit, in which it was highlighted “The importance of peace and stability throughout the Taiwan Strait” and called for a peaceful resolution of problems between China and Taiwan.
The statements – the first time a G7 statement referred to Taiwan – were the latest in a series of warnings in international forums against rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. In April, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga issued a joint union statement who stressed the importance of peace in the region. The number was also included in a joint Japanese-Australian statement this month.
Taiwan tensions are one of the China-related issues on which Western countries and their partners regularly express concern. Others include Beijing’s treatment of the country’s Uyghur minority, its undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy, and its aggressive behavior in China’s southern and eastern seas. This week, NATO leaders warned that China was putting up “Systemic Challenges” to the international norm-based order.
Beijing has reacted angrily. This week, he accused the G7 and NATO of “defaming him”.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to attack it if Taipei refuses to submit to its control. Over the past year, Beijing has intensified military pressure on its neighbor, with frequent flights of its air force to the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).
An ADIZ is not a sovereign airspace, but an area that some countries delimit to define where they consider that unannounced approaches to their airspace constitute a security risk and will respond, for example, with fighter jets.
Defense experts view China’s incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone as a tool used by Beijing to show its displeasure at international support for Taipei. The moves referred to “more political messaging than military operational importance,” said Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, a former chief of staff of the Taiwan Armed Forces, earlier this year.
But the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has also used flights to conduct operations in an area strategically important in its competition with U.S. forces and that would be significant in any conflict over Taiwan or the disputed sea of the United States. South China.
According to one map released by the Taiwan Defense Ministry alongside the Air Force statement on Tuesday, some of the fighters and bombers flew around the southern tip of the island to the western Pacific, a route that Chinese military aircraft have taken. started to do only in recent months and that Taiwanese experts published say they usually demonstrate their abilities.
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