In a single day, Taiwan detected 25 Chinese army aircraft nearing its airspace

Beijing, May 16 – Taiwan’s armed forces recorded 25 planes and five ships of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army approaching the island in one day, according to a statement from the island’s defense ministry.

The Taiwanese military regularly detects planes and ships of the People’s Liberation Army approaching the island. Over the past week, the average number of PLA aircraft registered per day was 14 units.

“From 6 a.m. on Monday, May 15 to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 16, 25 planes and five ships of the People’s Liberation Army were seen all over Taiwan,” the agency said on Twitter.

It is noteworthy that eight aircraft entered the island’s air defense identification zone in the southwest and east, including six H-6K bombers, a Y-8 transport aircraft and a Z-9 helicopter.

The situation around Taiwan escalated dramatically after a visit to the island in early August last year by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this move the United States’ support for Taiwanese separatism, and conducted large-scale military exercises.

Official relations between the central government of the People’s Republic of China and its island province ceased in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT forces were defeated in a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, and moved to Taiwan. Commercial and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties have started contacting through NGOs – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relationships Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.