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A record number of Chinese warplanes breached Taiwanese airspace as part of Beijing’s military exercises amid a key Nato summit, according to Taiwanese authorities.
Up to 66 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-governing island and 56 of them breached the median line of the Taiwan Strait, Taipei’s defence ministry said. It is a single-day record for this year.
China’s military drills came amid a key Nato summit in Washington, where Western leaders issued their strongest-ever condemnation of Beijing for being a “decisive” enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Sixty-six People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and seven People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6am today,” the defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Taiwan’s defence ministry also released two pictures of a Chinese J-16 fighter and a nuclear-capable H-6 bomber, which it said were taken recently.
“The military has a detailed grasp of the activities in the seas and waters around the Taiwan Strait, including of the Chinese communists’ aircraft and ships,” ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said.
Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, has complained of a sharp uptick in Chinese military activity in recent years and welcomed Nato’s “increasing interest in peace and stability” in the Indo-Pacific.
On Wednesday, Nato labelled China a “decisive enabler” of Putin’s war in Ukraine - in the alliance’s strongest rebuke of Beijing.
But Beijing hit back and accused Nato of smearing the country while demanding the transatlantic alliance stay out of Asia.
“Nato keeps playing up the interlink between Europe’s security and the security in Asia-Pacific. We urge it to stay within its role as a regional defensive organisation in the north Atlantic,” Beijing said.
“Nato should not become the disrupter of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific or a tool used by certain great powers to maintain hegemony.”
The heated rhetoric comes as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand join the Nato summit, a practice that started after Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022.
In response to the growing regional power of the People’s Liberation Army, US allies in Asia, including Japan and the Philippines, have stepped up joint planning, exercises and weapons deployments.
Chinese military officials have previously denounced Washington’s efforts to strengthen ties with its allies in the region as a plot to create an “Asian Nato”.
Reuters contributed to this report
