Taiwan Scrambles Jets After Chinese Drills

Date: 21 February 2021 - 21:06

News ID: ۸۷۸۵۸

TAIPEI (Dispatches) -- Taiwan’s air force has scrambled jets for two straight days after the Chinese military carried out drills in the South China Sea.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in Taipei that Chinese military forces had launched air and sea exercises near the disputed Pratas Islands in the South China Sea, prompting the air force to scramble its fighters and deploy missile systems for a second straight day.
The air force scrambled, with "radio warnings issued and air defense missile systems deployed to monitor the activity,” the ministry said.
China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province that should be reunited with the mainland under the internationally-recognized "One China” policy. Almost all world countries, including the U.S., recognize that sovereignty.
China has, in the past, said its military exercises near Taiwan are a "solemn warning” to secessionist factions in the self-ruled island and their foreign backers, particularly, the United States.
Shortly before the ministry’s statement, Taiwan announced a reshuffle of senior security officials including a new, U.S.-trained defense minister, to help bolster military modernization and intelligence efforts.
The U.S. is the island’s largest weapons supplier and an avid backer of Taiwan’s secessionist president.
China has pursued reunification with Taiwan ever since the island broke away from the mainland during a civil war in 1949.
Beijing claims sovereignty over the Pratas Islands. Earlier in January, the administration of former U.S. president Donald Trump lifted the decades-long ban on diplomatic ties with Taiwanese officials in a last-ditch effort to challenge China’s sovereignty.
China has repeatedly warned the U.S. against official ties with the self-ruled island.
Early this month, a U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait, in the first such voyage since the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Beijing has on several occasions advised Washington to refrain from conducting military activities in the region that could provoke potential close encounters by the air and naval forces of the two countries.