China has warned that “war may be triggered at any time” with Taiwan after it deployed a record number of fighter jets into the self-governing island’s air identification zone.
The government in Beijing sent 56 military aircraft, including 38 J-16 fighter jets, into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, amounting to 149 flights this month. This has raised concerns that tensions in the region
could escalate and turn into a military conflict.
The mass incursion yesterday coincided with a joint drill by the United States and its allies in the Philippine Sea, where HMS Queen Elizabeth was spotted with two US aircraft carriers. The British aircraft carrier later sailed through the Bashi Channel to enter the tense and disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The number of the sorties by the Chinese military was the highest since Beijing began such operations in September last year. Taiwan’s president has warned of catastrophic consequences if the island falls to China, which claims the island as its own.
An editorial in the
Global Times, one of the most excitable and nationalistic of the Chinese state-owned newspapers, said: “The situation across the Taiwan Straits has almost lost any room for manoeuvre, teetering on the edge of a face-off, creating a sense of urgency that the war may be triggered at any time.
“The secessionist forces on the island will never be allowed to secede Taiwan from China … and the island will not be allowed to act as an outpost of the US’s strategic containment against China … If the US and [Taiwan] do not take the initiative to reverse the current situation, the Chinese mainland’s military punishment for ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces will eventually be triggered.”
It added: “Time will prove that this warning is not just a verbal threat.”