The Chinese flights come a day after US Secretary of State Beijing warned that Washington was committed to defending the democratic, self-governing island, which China considers part of its sovereign territory.
The 25 aircraft sent by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces have 14 J-16 fighter jets, four J-10 fighter jets, four H-6K bombers, two anti-submarine war vehicles and an early warning and control aircraft in the air, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense.
Taiwan has responded by scrambling fighter jets, notifying missile defense systems and issuing radio alerts to Chinese aircraft that they have entered the southwest corner of the island’s self-proclaimed air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the ministry said in a statement.
A graph provided by the ministry showed the flight tracks for Chinese planes coming from the Chinese mainland and rotated 180 degrees between the main Taiwan island and Pratas Island, southeast of Hong Kong.
Last September, Taiwan began posting regular updates on PLA flights near the island. Before Monday, the largest number of Chinese warplanes entering ADIZ in Taiwan was 20 jets on March 26.
The US Federal Aviation Administration defines an ADIZ as “a designated area of airspace over land or water within which a country needs the immediate and positive identification, location and air traffic control of aircraft for the sake of the country’s national security.”
Chinese planes have entered ADIZ in Taiwan almost daily over the past few weeks as tensions heat up between Beijing and Taipei’s biggest supporter, the United States.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, even though the democratic island of nearly 24 million people has been governed separately for more than seven decades.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised that Beijing will never allow Taiwan to become formally independent and has refused to rule out the use of force, if necessary, to unite the island with the mainland.
Analysts said the exercises were a warning to Taipei and Washington that Beijing would not end any steps toward Taiwan’s independence, and were prepared to take military action to prevent that from happening.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that Washington was committed to defending Taiwan.
“What is of real concern to us is increasingly aggressive action by the government in Beijing targeting Taiwan,” Blinken said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We have a serious commitment to Taiwan’s self-defense. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to violate the status quo. to try to change., ‘Blinken said.
Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Chinese flights to ADIZ in Taiwan continue.
‘Every time the United States takes a stand on Taiwan that China does not like, or if Taiwan does something it does not like, it usually increases activities within Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, and sometimes around some of the islands occupying Taiwan in the South China Sea, ”said Glaser.
China is rapidly gathering weapons and systems to overwhelm the island militarily, the leaders said.
“My opinion is that this problem is much closer to us than most people think,” said adm. John Aquilino, the admiral chosen to be the next commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, warned in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
China considers establishing full control over Taiwan as its first priority, Aquilino added.
The current head of the commando, adm. Philip Davidson, during a trial earlier this month, said that China is prepared to take Taiwan by force within the next six years.
CNN’s Angus Watson and CNN’s Beijing bureau contributed to this report.