Taiwan denounced this Saturday (08.06.2022) that Chinese military ships and planes crossed the middle line of the Strait of Formosa again in a “possible simulated attack” within the military maneuvers announced after the visit to the island of the president of the US Legislative Nancy Pelosi.
In response, Taipei issued alerts and deployed air and naval patrols, also activating its land-based missile systems, as it did yesterday in the face of the “strong provocation” of the crossing of the middle line of the Strait by “several” Chinese ships and planes.
Taipei forces “detected multiple batches of communist planes and ships carrying out activities around the Taiwan Strait, some of which crossed the median line. They were considered to be carrying out a simulated attack on the main island of Taiwan,” the ministry said. Defense in a statement.
In a message published on its official Twitter account, the island’s Ministry of National Defense assures that the objective of this attack simulation would be a “high value asset”, without specifying more details in this regard.
Taiwan Air Force Mirage fighter jets taxi on a runway at the air base in Hsinchu.
an imaginary border
The imaginary line in the strait functions as an unofficial but tacitly respected border for China and Taiwan for the past decades.
The movements of the People’s Liberation Army (EPL, the Chinese Army) are part of the military maneuvers that it has been carrying out since Thursday and will last until Sunday in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit, and which have so far included live fire and the launch of long-range missiles.
These exercises take place in six zones around the island, one of them about 20 kilometers from the coast of Kaohsiung, the main city in southern Taiwan.
Guests at a hotel in Pingtan pick up food from a buffet as Chinese state television news reports on military exercises in the Strait of Formosa.
different military maneuvers
Although China has held other drills in the Taiwan Strait in recent years, this week’s drills are different because “they cover a larger area, involve more military elements and are expected to be highly effective,” Chinese experts on the matter reported. of defense quoted by local media.
Taiwan has described China’s military presence in those areas as a “blockade,” and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called China’s “deliberately heightened military threat” “irresponsible.”
China, which described Pelosi’s visit as a “farce” and “deplorable betrayal”, claims sovereignty over the island and considers Taiwan a rebellious province since the Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949, after losing the civil war against the communists
jc (efe, afp)