Taiwan's Defense Ministry says 13 Chinese Aircraft entered Island's airspace

The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense said 13 military aircraft of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered Taiwan's airspace on Monday during a two-week reservist exercise on the island's north.

"13 PLA aircraft (Y-8 EW, J-16*5 and J-10*7) entered #Taiwan's southwest [air defence identification zone] on March 14, 2022," the ministry tweeted, reported Sputnik.

The aircraft include one Shaanxi Y-8 medium-range transport aircraft, seven J-10 multipurpose fighter jets, and five J-16 destroyers, according to the ministry.

China directs military aircraft to Taiwan's airspace almost on a daily basis, yet ordinarily, the number of planes does not exceed five per day, with occasional cases of more than 10 jets.

A two-week training program for reservists began in Taiwan's northern city of Taoyuan on March 5, with around 400 people participating in the program voluntarily.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said last year that starting in 2022, it will reinforce the training of reserve forces amid escalating tensions between Beijing and Taipei. The duration of mandatory retraining for some reserve forces will be increased to 14 days from the five to seven days of the previous program.

The first week of the retraining course under the new program will be devoted to firing practice, with an increase in the total number of firing hours. The exercise will include instructions in and usage of different types of weapons, training in combat situations, and honing troops' command and control skills, reported Sputnik.

Official relations between Beijing and Taipei broke down in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the two sides have been in contact through nongovernmental organizations, including the Beijing Association for the Advancement of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.

( With inputs from ANI )

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