Global Courant 2023-04-14 06:43:04
TAIPEI – Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Friday it had not seen any Chinese military aircraft crossing the sensitive centerline of the Taiwan Strait in the past 24 hours, following days of military exercises by Beijing around the island.
China began the exercises on Saturday after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen returned from Los Angeles where she met Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, enraging Beijing.
China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, strongly rejecting the Taipei government’s claims.
In its regular morning report on Chinese military activity over the past 24 hours, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had seen four Chinese military aircraft and eight Chinese warships around Taiwan.
But an accompanying map of China’s activities showed no Chinese warplanes crossing the centerline of the Taiwan Strait, which normally serves as an unofficial barrier between the two.
China says it does not recognize the centerline and has had fighter jets flying over it regularly since August, when it hosted war games after then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
The ministry’s map showed a single Chinese Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft flying in an area between Taiwan’s southwest coast and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands at the top of the South China Sea. REUTERS
