The Taiwanese armed forces over the past day recorded the approach of 34 aircraft and nine ships of the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) to the island, follows from the daily report of the Taiwanese defense department.
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“During the period from 06:00 on January 31 to 06:00 on February 1, 34 aircraft and nine ships of the People’s Liberation Army of China were observed around Taiwan,” the report said.
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It is noted that 20 PLA aircraft entered the island’s air defense identification zone, including two Su-30 fighters, two J-11s, four J-10s, six J-16s, BZK-005 and BZK-007 drones, a Y- 8, a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft and two Y-8 electronic reconnaissance aircraft.
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The PLA reduced activity around Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday, which lasted from January 21 to 27. The data of the island’s Ministry of Defense indicate that if on January 20, 31 aircraft and four ships of the PLA were able to fix around Taiwan, and on January 21 – 14 aircraft and three ships, then in the six days of the new year according to the lunar calendar, 33 aircraft and 22 ships of the PLA approached the island in total.
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Relations between China and the United States deteriorated significantly after the visit to Taiwan in early August last year by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Beijing, which considers the island its territory, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this step Washington’s support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between China’s central government and its island province broke down in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang forces, defeated in a civil war with the Communist Party, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s.
