Taiwan says China deployed 71 warplanes in weekend war drills

TAIPEI: China deployed 71 warplanes in weekend military exercises around Taiwan, Taipei´s defence ministry said on Monday, including dozens of fighter jets in one of the biggest daily incursions to date.

The People´s Liberation Army said it had conducted a “strike drill” on Sunday in response to unspecified “provocations” and “collusion” between the United States and the self-ruled island.

Data from Taiwan´s defence ministry showed those drills were one of the largest since they started releasing daily tallies.

In a post on Twitter, Taiwan said 60 fighter jets took part in the drills, including six Su-30 warplanes, some of China´s most advanced.

Moreover, 47 of the sorties crossed into the island´s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), the third-highest daily incursion on record, according to AFP´s database.

Chiu Tai-san, head of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan´s top China policy-making body, expressed “strong dissatisfaction” at the latest incursions during a parliament session on Monday.

Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which claims the democratic island as part of its territory, to be taken one day.

Beijing has ramped up military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan under President Xi Jinping as relations have deteriorated.

One of the pressure tactics China has increasingly used is probing Taiwan´s ADIZ with its warplanes.

According to an AFP database, there have been more than 1,700 such incursions so far this year, compared with 969 in 2021. Taiwan´s defence ministry said it recorded around 380 incursions in 2020.

China did not specify the number of aircraft mobilised for Sunday´s exercises, nor the exact location of the manoeuvres.