For two consecutive days, last February, China sent its strategic bombers over the Taiwan Strait, resulting in tensions between Beijing and Taipei.
The island's Ministry of Defense announced that the H-6 bombers, escorted by J-11 fighters, had flown more than half that divides the waters of the Strait, towards the coasts of Taiwan. The aircraft first maximized the power of the engines and then retreated. This was Taiwan's second complaint since 2016 of trespassing of Chinese jets into the Strait.
The H-6 used in the operation were part of a "training mission in the Pacific".
The aircraft first passed through the Bashi Canal, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, and then headed for the Strait, the ministry said. There were no comments from Beijing on the incident. However, on the same day, theChinese Office for Taiwanese Affairs urged the Progressive Democratic Party (DPP), in power on the island, to "Don't play with fire". According to Beijing, the DPP had "Adopted a position that increases the clashes in the strait, intensifying new operations in Taiwan and the United States, taking advantage of the opportunity to seek independence with openly dangerous provocations ".
China had criticized these facts, stating that Taiwan remains the most sensitive issue in its relations with the United States.
For its part, the President of Taiwan, Ms. Tsai Ing-wen, had stated that Beijing should focus on controlling the spread of coronavirus rather than wasting time on threatening Taiwan.
Taiwan has long accused China of the "encirclement" policy it is pursuing towards the island. The episode three months ago had seen Chinese J-11 fighters and H-6 bombers fly over the Bashi Canal, south of Taiwan, before heading towards the Pacific, before returning to base, through the Miyako Strait. located between the Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa, northeast of Taiwan.
"To respond to this provocation, the ROCAF (Republic of China Air Force) took off the F-16 Block 20 and activated the anti-aircraft defense device (Taiwan may have 6 surface-to-air missile batteries Sky Bow I / II / III; 6 batteries of Skyguard; 19 batteries of MIM-23 I-Hawk; 18 MIM-104 launchers Patriot PAC-3, Editor's Note) in accordance with the rules of combat readiness ", the Taipei Ministry of Defense reported.
"Communist China's long-range offshore missions impact regional security and stability and endanger the peace and well-being shared by all sides."
Taiwan is considered by China to be a secessionist province, which will have to return, sooner or later, to the orbit of the motherland if necessary also with the use of force. A will reaffirmed in 2005, with the anti-secession law and reaffirmed in 2018 through the declarations of the Chinese president (for life) Xi Jinping who claimed that history would have inflicted exemplary punishment on all those who had harmed the unity of the country.
However the island enjoys, de facto, an independent government that defines itself Republic of China (ROC), in continuity with the first republic founded on the Chinese continent in 1912 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang), who arrived in Taipei at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
In the same year, the People's Republic of China was founded in Beijing, which defines itself as the only legitimate government of all the Chinese people and asks all the countries with which it establishes diplomatic relations to accept the principle of "one China".
Relations between Taipei and Beijing have further deteriorated following the spread of COVID-19.
Taiwan has accused Beijing of preventing the island from accessing comprehensive health information provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).
