Air and sea exercises of the Chinese PLA Air Force nearly collided with a Taiwanese air force drill today, when PLA aircraft entered the same zone that the Taiwanese jets were planning to carry out drills. According to a report in South China Morning Post, 11 PLA aircraft, six fighter jets, two bombers and three surveillance aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) between 9.30 AM and 10.22 AM, local time (UTC+8) on Aug. 17, entering the same zone were Taiwanese jets were to exercise beginning at 10:30 AM. The Taiwanese responded by scrambling jet fighters to shadow the PLA warplanes, issuing radio warnings and deploying air defense missile systems to monitor their activity, the island’s defense ministry said. Two PLA Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft were spotted, one entering the Taiwanese target zone and the second in the Bashi channel just off a missile testing site at the southern end of Taiwan.
Earlier, the PLA had announced the launching of joint live-fire assault drills in multiple locations near the island of Taiwan in response to recent collusion and provocations by the U.S. and Taiwan secessionists. Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesman for the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said that the command dispatched warships, anti-submarine warfare aircraft and fighter jets in surrounding maritime and aerial areas near the southwest and southeast of the island of Taiwan for military exercises including joint live-fire assaults, and also for testing the command troops’ integrated joint operation capabilities.
Recently, the U.S. and Taiwan authorities have been frequently colluding and making provocations, sending wrong signals that severely violates China’s sovereignty and seriously damage peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits. They have become the biggest source of security risk in the region, Shi said, according to Global Times. The exercises are a necessary action taken based on the current security situation in the Taiwan Straits and the need to safeguard national sovereignty, and are a solemn response to the foreign interferences and the provocations by “Taiwan independence” forces, he remarked.
