Taiwan’s defence minister has claimed that China has deployed 71 warplanes in weekend military exercises around Taiwan.
The People’s Liberation Army said on Sunday that it held a striking drill in reply to undefined provocations and collusion between the US and the self-ruled island.
According to data from Taiwan’s defence ministry, those drills were among the largest since the ministry began publishing daily totals.
Taiwan said on Twitter that 60 fighter jets participated in the drills, including six Su-30 warplanes, which are among China’s most advanced.
According to AFP’s database, “Moreover, 47 of the sorties crossed into the island’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), the third-highest daily incursion on record.”
Taiwan faced constant threats of invasion by China, which claimed that the democratic island was part of its territory and threatened to take it one day.
Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing increased military, diplomatic, and economic pressure on Taiwan as relations deteriorated.
So far this year, there have been more than 1,700 such incursions compared with 969 in 2021 and 146 in 2020, officials claimed.
