Taiwan Trains Missiles at China Jets as U.S. Official Visits

Date: 10 August 2020 - 21:37

News ID: ۸۱۵۸۹

TAIPEI (Dispatches) -- Chinese air force jets briefly crossed the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait on Monday, Taiwan’s government said, claiming that they were tracked by Taiwanese missiles as U.S. health chief Alex Azar visited the island to offer President Donald Trump’s support.
Azar arrived in Taiwan on Sunday, the highest-level U.S. official to visit in four decades.
China, which claims the island as its own, condemned the visit which comes after a period of sharply deteriorating relations between China and the United States.
China, which had promised unspecified retaliation to the trip, flew J-11 and J-10 fighter aircraft briefly onto Taiwan’s side of the sensitive and narrow strait that separates it from its giant neighbor, at around 9 am (0100 GMT), shortly before Azar met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s air force said.
The aircraft were tracked by land-based Taiwanese anti-aircraft missiles and were "driven out” by patrolling Taiwanese aircraft, the air force claimed in a statement released by the defense ministry.
A senior Taiwan official familiar with the government’s security planning told Reuters that China was obviously "targeting” Azar’s visit with a "very risky” move given the Chinese jets were in range of Taiwan’s missiles.
The flight was only the third time since 2016 that Taiwan has said Chinese jets had crossed the strait’s median line.
The Trump administration has made strengthening its support for the island a priority, amid deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, and has boosted arms sales.
Washington broke off official ties with Taipei in 1979 in favor of Beijing. The U.S. says Azar is visiting to strengthen economic and public-health cooperation with Taiwan.
The United States, which has had more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other country, has repeatedly clashed with China over the coronavirus pandemic.
China considers Taiwan a Chinese province.
Azar later told reporters that at Trump’s direction, he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had sought to restore Taiwan’s status as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA).
"But the Chinese Communist Party and the World Health Organization have prevented that. This has been one of the major frustrations that the Trump administration has had with the World Health Organization and its inability to reform.”