Taiwan fired warning shots against a Chinese drone that flew over an offshore islet on Tuesday, shortly after the president Tsai Ing Wen indicated that he had ordered Taiwan’s military to take “strong countermeasures” against what he called Chinese provocations.
It was the first time warning shots had been fired. in such an incident, in the middle of a period of heightened tension between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers its own territory. Taiwan vigorously disputes China’s sovereignty claims.
The drone returned to China after the shooting, a military spokesman said.
Taiwan has complained that Chinese drones repeatedly fly very close to small island groups. which it controls near the Chinese coast, the last time near the Kinmen Islands, as part of military exercises in Beijing.
China has carried out exercises around the island following the visit of the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosithis month.
Kinmen Defense Command spokesman, Chang Jung Shunassured that the live bullets were fired just before 6 pm (local time) against the drone that had approached the Erdan islet, and that flares had previously been used. The drone flew back to China, he reported.
There was no immediate response from China. On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed the Taiwan’s complaints about drones like nothing “to make a fuss”.
Footage from at least two drone missions showing Taiwanese soldiers at their posts, and in a case throwing stones to a dronehave been widely circulated on Chinese social media.
On Tuesday, during a visit to the Armed Forces in the Penghu Islands, Tsai criticized China for its drone activity and other “gray areas.”
“I want to tell everyone that the more the enemy provokes, the calmer we must be”, Tsai told the navy officials. “We will not stir up disputes, and we will exercise self-restraint, but that It doesn’t mean we won’t fight back.”
He explained that he had ordered the Ministry of Defense to take the “necessary and strong countermeasures” to defend its airspace. He did not give more details.
The Kinmen Islands lie at their closest point only a few hundred meters from Chinese territory, facing the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou.
“HIT THEM, HIT THEM!”
The officials told reporters accompanying Tsai that warships and fighter jets based in Penghu – which is in the Taiwan Strait closer to Taiwan than China – have come out armed with live ammunition since China began its exercises this monthalthough they have not opened fire.
“Sometimes, near the exercise area, Chinese Communist fishing boats appear, and provocatively say ‘give them, give them!'” Lee acknowledged.
In a Facebook post that quoted a navy commander in Penghu, Tsai reported that ships from both sides were coming within 500-600 meters of each other and that Taiwanese ships were “strictly guarding” their Chinese counterparts.
The Chinese military unit responsible for the area adjacent to Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, released a video of the Penghu Islands on August 15, apparently taken by the Chinese air force.
The Taiwanese military rated the information Warfare Video, accusing China of exaggerating and saying that it was not true that Chinese forces had approached the islands.
The Taiwanese Armed Forces are well equipped, but inferior to those in China. Tsai has been overseeing a modernization program and has made increasing defense spending a priority.
Asked about Chinese drone activities early Tuesday, Taiwan’s Defense Minister, Chiu Kuo-chengassured that he could not give details about what they would do to counter the incursions, but affirmed that the military would react based on the principle of “self-defense”.
“Don’t get excited then when I set off some firecrackers to scare away some sparrows,” he told reporters in Taipei in a veiled warning to China.
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