China’s Air Force Conducts Massive Incursion Near Taiwan

In Beijing’s latest mass air invasion, 37 Chinese military planes flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone on Thursday. Some of these planes then flew into the western Pacific. In response, Taiwan turned on its defense systems.

China thinks of Taiwan, which is run by a democracy government, as its own land. For the past three years, China has regularly sent its air force into the skies near Taiwan, but not into Taiwan’s air space.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said that starting at 5 a.m. (2100 GMT), it had seen 37 Chinese air force planes, including J-11 and J-16 fighters and H-6 bombers that could carry nuclear weapons, moving into the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, or ADIZ. The ADIZ is a larger area that Taiwan watches and patrols to give its forces more time to react to threats.

Some of the Chinese planes went to the southeast of Taiwan and crossed into the western Pacific to do “air surveillance and long distance navigation training,” the ministry said in a short statement.

Taiwan sent its own planes and ships to keep watch and turned on land-based missile systems, the statement said, using the normal language it uses when China does something like this.

When asked for a statement, China’s defense ministry did not answer right away.

China and Russia finished a second round of joint air patrols over the Western Pacific on Wednesday. This came after flights the day before over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, which caused Japan to worry about its national security.

After Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen went to the United States in April, China held war games around Taiwan.

China says it owns Taiwan, but Taiwan’s government says only the people of the island can decide the island’s future.