Taiwan has protested what it called a “reckless” and “provocative” flight by two Chinese fighter jets across the so-called median line of the Taiwan Strait, the country said late Sunday.

“At 11 a.m., March 31, 2 PLAAF J-11 jets violated the long-held tacit agreement by crossing the median line of the #Taiwan Strait,” the official Twitter account of the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said in a tweet. “It was an intentional, reckless & provocative action. We’ve informed regional partners & condemn #China for such behavior.”

PLAAF is the acronym for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.

In the extremely rare flight, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that the Chinese warplanes had crossed into its airspace and that it had scrambled fighters in response. Local media reports said the incident had triggered a 10-minute standoff between the Taiwanese and Chinese warplanes.

The 180-km-wide Taiwan Strait separates mainland China from self-governed and democratic Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold — by force if necessary.

The flight was rare in that Beijing and Taipei have generally respected the median line in the Taiwan Strait, usually keeping their warplanes and ships from crossing it.

Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, called the flight “unusual,” but noted that Chinese fighter jets had frequently crossed the median line in the mid- to late-1990s.

However, Glaser said that the Chinese “haven’t done so for at least a decade, likely longer.”

“I’ve been told that Chinese jets approach the midline, but then veer off,” she said.

The flight came just after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen capped off a tour of several Pacific nations with a visit last week to Hawaii, where she said she had formally submitted new requests to the United States for F-16B fighter jets.

The U.S. has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taipei more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

China is suspicious of Tsai and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and any push for the island’s formal independence.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in January that Beijing reserves the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, but would strive to achieve peaceful “reunification.”

Beijing has called Taiwan “the most important and sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations” and has bolstered its military presence near the island, sailing its sole operating aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait in January and March of last year and holding large-scale “encirclement” exercises and bomber training throughout 2018.

In an editorial published late Sunday, the state-run China Daily newspaper criticized Tsai, saying that she “clearly intends to keep the U.S. tied to her bandwagon of ‘Taiwan independence,’ ” adding that “if Tsai continues to blindly pursue the course she has been taking and gives a cold shoulder to public will, she will pay a dear political price sooner or later.”

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency noted in a report released in January that China continues to undertake ambitious steps to modernize and better equip its military — steps that are driven primarily by “Beijing’s long-standing interest to eventually compel Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland and deter any attempt by Taiwan to declare independence.”

“Beijing’s anticipation that foreign forces would intervene in a Taiwan scenario led the (People’s Liberation Army) to develop a range of systems to deter and deny foreign regional force projection,” the report added.

Sunday’s move also comes less than a week after the U.S. sent ships through the strait — the third time in as many months — amid Washington’s ramped-up naval activities in the waterway.

Observers have said that those sailings have likely been interpreted by China as implicit support for self-ruled Taiwan.

The most recent saw the U.S. send the Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture-based USS Curtis Wilbur destroyer and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bertholf through the strait on March 25 and 26. That mission was unusual, experts said, in that it was believed to be the first one involving a Coast Guard vessel.

Although the waterway is regarded as an international waterway, China has long been sensitive about the presence of U.S. military forces there.

That presence has grown since last year, with the most recent operation being the sixth known transit in about seven months. The U.S. Navy also sailed two ships through the strait in October and November — operations that were shadowed by multiple Chinese warships — and conducted a similar operation in July. Prior to that, the operations were believed to occur only about once a year. </s> Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing Wen has said her country’s air force will conduct a “forceful expulsion” of any Chinese military aircraft that cross the so-called “Median Line” in the Taiwan Strait, which serves as de facto boundary between it and the People’s Republic of China. This comes a day after two Chinese J-11 fighter jets violated the line, prompting Taiwanese jets to scramble in response and eliciting a particularly condemnation from Taipei. This initial incident also followed reports that the United States was preparing to sell advanced F-16 Viper fighter jets to Taiwan, where Beijing has long said it draws a “red line,” and a significant increase in American naval patrols through the Taiwan Strait. Tsai’s announcement first appeared in a post on her official Facebook page on April 1, 2019. The day before, the pair of Chinese J-11 fighter jets had crossed the median line and remained there for approximately 10 minutes, before returning to the other side. Chinese violations of the Median Line are not uncommon, but in the past, the aircraft have typically withdrawn quickly. Though Taiwan sent unspecified fighter jets out to meet the J-11s, it's unclear whether the two actually came within visual distance of each other.

This follows months of increasingly aggressive Chinese aerial activity around Taiwan, which is clearly meant to demonstrate the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) in any future cross-strait skirmish. In May 2018, PLAAF fighter jets and H-6 bombers had notably flown a route that effectively encircled the island, showing its ability to attack from virtually any direction, something that had not necessarily been the case in the past. Beijing “should stop behavior of this sort, which endangers regional peace, and not be an international troublemaker,” Huang Chung Yen, a spokesperson for the Taiwanese president, had said after the boundary line incursion on Mar. 31, 2019, according to Reuters. President Tsai had ordered the country’s military “to complete all tasks on war preparation,” he added.

It’s not entirely clear from Tsai’s statement exactly what measures the Taiwanese Air Force will take in the future to eject Chinese aircraft that cross the Median Line. It certainly means that its combat jets will intercept any incoming planes and demand that they leave immediately, but what amount of “force” Taiwan’s pilots might use to ensure compliance with those instructions remains to be seen. The danger, especially with not knowing the exact extent of Taiwan’s new policy, is that miscommunication or miscalculation in a future incident might quickly lead to a larger cross-strait skirmish. Regardless, Tsai’s statement is a significant escalation in rhetoric and it's hard to see how it won't elicit a fiery response from the government in Beijing. So far, however, China’s Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry had declined to comment on the breach of the Median Line and the response from Tsai and other Taiwanese authorities. Tsai’s new threat to respond more forcefully to future Median Line violations also reflects a recent spike in tensions between the two parties, as well as between China and the United States, the latter being Taiwan’s principle international ally. After establishing diplomatic ties with China in 1979, the U.S. government broke off technical relations with authorities in Taiwan, but continues to work with officials there through other channels. The United States also reserves the right to sell weapons and other military hardware, ostensibly to bolster the Taiwanese military’s ability to defend against a Chinese intervention. However, in the past, the U.S. government has often shied away from selling Taiwan more advanced military systems that might draw particular ire from Beijing. The sale of new, or even upgraded, F-16 fighter jets to help improve the capability of the increasingly geriatric Taiwanese air force has been a particular saga, which you can read about more here. This attitude has undergone a noticeable change under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, which has developed stronger ties with Tsai’s government.

In March 2019, reports emerged that U.S. President Donald Trump’s Administration was preparing to approve the sale of dozens of new Block 70 F-16s, one of the latest and most advanced configurations of the jet that Lockheed Martin offers. Taiwan’s acquisition of these more capable fighter jets has long been a “red line” for China and this reported deal may have been part of what prompted the PLAAF to send its J-11s across the Median Line, at least in part, in the first place. The incursion also came just days after the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Legend-class cutter USCGC Bertholf sailed through the Taiwan Strait on a so-called Freedom of Navigation patrol, or FONOP. This was the sixth such patrol in nine months, which reflects a major uptick in FONOPs through this region under Trump. There have also been reports that the Trump administration is considering sending an aircraft carrier through the Strait, which would only further heighten regional tensions. In January 2019, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a China Military Power report that concluded Beijing’s desire to eventually coerce Taiwan to reunify with the mainland was the “primary driver” of the country’s efforts to expand and modernize its military capabilities. This same report also specifically cited then-U.S. President Bill Clinton’s decision to send two carrier strike groups through the Taiwan Strait in 1996, a massive show of force in response to a major regional crisis at the time, as a key incident that kicked off Beijing’s efforts to rapidly increase the size and capabilities of its forces. The People’s Liberation Army has been notably focused on developing means to counter American aircraft carriers in any future crisis.

The present escalating war of words between China and Taiwan and China and the United States certainly points to a risk of another crisis similar to the one in 1996. In that instance, the inciting incident was the U.S. government’s decision to allow then-President Lee Teng Hui to speak at Cornell University, his alma mater, on “Taiwanese Democratization.” Authorities Beijing had branded Lee as an independence-minded “traitor.” The current Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has similarly labeled Tsai an “independence extremist” and China’s premier has not shied away from threatening to use force to prevent the island from formally breaking away and declaring itself an independent country. “The country is growing strong, the nation is rejuvenating and unification between the two sides of the strait is the great trend of history,” Xi said in a New Year’s address aimed square at Taiwan that he gave before a gathering in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jan. 2, 2019. “We make no promise to abandon the use of force, and retain the option of taking all necessary measures.”

In 1996, China had responded to Lee’s talk in the United States with a series of snap military drills, including firing DF-15 short-range ballistic missiles near the Taiwanese-controlled Pengjia islet. This, in turn, led to the U.S. Navy show of force involving the two carriers. It’s not clear how a similar series of altercations might go today, and whether sailing carrier groups into the region might be enough now to defuse the situation, especially given China’s increasingly assertive stance elsewhere. Just in January 2019, Chinese forces performed a missile drill involving its relatively new DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles that seemed aimed at threatening the prospect of long-range strikes on American forces in the South China Sea. In October 2018, there had also been a very dangerous encounter between People’s Liberation Army Navy and U.S. Navy warships in that hotly contested region. The video below shows Chinese personnel conducting a snap drill involving the DF-26 IRBM in January 2019. </s> TAIPEI: Taipei hit out at China on Sunday (Mar 31) for what it said was a "reckless and provocative" incursion by two fighter jets across a largely respected line dividing the two sides in the Taiwan Strait.

The defence ministry said Taiwan scrambled its own aircraft on Sunday morning and broadcast warnings after two J-11 fighter jets crossed over the "median line" within the waters that separate the island from the mainland.

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"At 11 am, March 31, 2 PLAAF J-11 jets violated the long-held tacit agreement by crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Twitter.

"It was an intentional, reckless and provocative action. We've informed regional partners and condemn China for such behavior," the ministry added.

China has ramped up the number of fighter and warship crossings near Taiwan or through the straits in recent years, rattling nerves on the island at a time when relations are at a low point.

But it is highly unusual for them to cross the so-called median line, a widely agreed upon boundary that passes through the middle of the straits.

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Taiwanese media said the last time Chinese jets had crossed the line was in 2011.

That incident was portrayed by both sides as an inadvertent mistake by two jets responding to a nearby US spy plane.

But on Sunday Taipei described the latest incursion as a deliberate act.

Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang called the flights "provocative and damaging the cross-straits status quo".

The flights come a week after the US sailed a destroyer and a coastguard ship through the Taiwan Strait, angering Beijing.

Although the straits are an international waterway China often hits out when US or other western navy ships pass through them.

Earlier this month Taiwan said it had made a formal request to the US for new fighter jets.

Since 2002, the US has repeatedly denied such requests, fearing a possible backlash from Beijing.

But in that time China has massively increased spending on its armed forces, including highly advanced fifth-generation jet fighters.

That has left Taiwan with an ageing airforce that analysts say is outgunned and in desperate need of an upgrade.

China has significantly stepped up diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan since the Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, including staging a series of military exercises near the island.

She will be fighting for re-election in January 2020.

Last week Tsai made a brief stop in Hawaii to deliver a speech, prompting China to lodge an official protest with Washington. </s> TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan said Monday its planes warned off Chinese military aircraft that crossed the centre line in the Taiwan Strait, and called China’s move a provocation that seeks to alter the status quo in the waterway dividing the island from mainland China.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said a pair of Chinese J-11 jet fighters crossed the line at around 11:00 a.m. Sunday and entered the island’s southwestern airspace. It said Taiwan scrambled jets to warn off the Chinese planes, which came within about 185 kilometres (115 miles) of Taiwan.

“Yesterday, Chinese military aircraft provoked us by violating the tacit agreement by crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait. They backed to the west side of the median line after warnings by our Air Force,” Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said in remarks at a military awards ceremony.

Foreign Ministry Joseph Wu told reporters at the legislature that the line crossing was an intentional act, calling it a provocative and dangerous. He said Taiwan had informed “regional partners” about the incident.

About 160 kilometres (100 miles) wide at its narrowest, the Taiwan Strait opens at its southern end into the South China Sea, where Taiwan and China share overlapping territorial claims. Since the sides split amid civil war in 1949, China has claimed Taiwan as its own territory to be absorbed by force if necessary.

Tsai, who Beijing despises for her pro-independence views, has sought to bolster Taiwan’s air power with the purchase of latest-model F-16V fighters from the U.S., Taiwan’s chief source of defensive weapons. </s> Taiwan says its planes warned off Chinese military aircraft that crossed the center line in the Taiwan Strait, calling China's move a provocation seeking to alter the status quo in the waterway dividing the island from mainland China.

Taiwan's defense ministry said a pair of Chinese J-11 jet fighters crossed the line around 11 a.m. Sunday and entered the island's southwestern airspace. It said Taiwan scrambled jets to warn off the Chinese planes, which came within about 185 kilometers (115 miles) of the island itself.

The ministry said in a tweet that the Chinese planes "violated the long-held tacit agreement by crossing the median line" of the strait.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters that such acts sought to alter the status quo and threatened regional security and stability. </s> TAIPEI (REUTERS) - Taiwan on Sunday (March 31) condemned what it called a "provocative" move from China after two Chinese fighter jets flew past a maritime line amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

Earlier on Sunday, Taiwan scrambled aircraft to "drive away" two Chinese fighter jets which it said flew past a maritime border in Taiwan Strait, the self-ruled island's Defence Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday.

The ministry said China's move had "seriously impacted regional safety and stability".

There was no immediate reaction from Beijing.

China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle Taiwan during drills in the past few years and worked to isolate the island internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.

The United States last week sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the Taiwan Strait, as part of an increase in the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.

Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea. </s> Taiwan scrambled jets Wednesday as China’s sole aircraft carrier led Chinese warships through the Taiwan Strait with all eyes on Russia, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News.

It was the second time China sailed the aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the strait in the past few weeks, with tensions between Beijing and Taiwan escalating. The carrier was traveling northwest along the center line dividing the strait, along with its battle group.

It came a few days after China flew another nuclear-capable H-6 bomber down to a set of contested islands in a show of force. The bomber flew around the Spratly Islands on Sunday.

Taiwan’s military was closely monitoring the ships’ passage and urged the public not to be alarmed. Taiwan regularly dispatches planes and ships to keep a watchful eye on Chinese forces’ movements around the island, although the military gave no details about its specific response.

The heavily trafficked 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from southeastern China. The carrier was on its way back from its first journey to the Western Pacific, where it carried out a training exercise, Reuters reported.

Based on a Soviet-built platform and commissioned in 2012, the Liaoning earlier this month carried out what Beijing called routine combat drills in the South China Sea. China has fortified the area with seven man-made islands, some containing runways and coastal defenses.

China declared in November that the carrier and its complement of J-15 fighter jets were combat-ready, setting off jitters in an already tense region.

The Liaoning set off for the Western Pacific last month, passing through the Miyako Strait, south of Okinawa, and then the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines as it entered the South China Sea.

Japanese and Taiwanese surveillance aircraft and ships closely monitored the Liaoning along its journey, seen by some as a sign of how China plans to use the carrier to demonstrate its willingness to back up its territorial claims with military muscle.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has never renounced its threat to use force if it considers that necessary to prevent the island’s permanent independence from the mainland.

Relations between the sides have deteriorated badly since Taiwanese elected independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen last year, and Chinese officials have warned of more turbulence ahead unless she endorses Beijing’s view that Taiwan is part of China.

China has been steadily ratcheting-up the economic and political pressure on Tsai, discouraging Chinese tourists from visiting the island of 23 million and intervening to prevent its participation in international forums. That has fueled speculation that Beijing will seek to win away more of the island’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies, which now stand at just 21.

“Looking ahead in 2017, the development of cross-strait relations faces increased levels of uncertainty and the challenge of risk has risen,” Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told reporters at a bi-weekly briefing on Wednesday.

Ma said he had no information on the Liaoning’s passage through the Taiwan Strait and referred questions on the matter to the Defense Ministry, which did not immediately respond.

Having been thoroughly overhauled in China, the Liaoning represents a new degree of sophistication in the Chinese armed forces that includes ballistic missile submarines and prototype stealth fighters.

China announced in 2015 that it was building additional carriers entirely with domestic technology.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that China’s only aircraft carrier had transited the Taiwan Strait amid soaring tensions between Beijing and Taipei.

The ministry said the Liaoning carrier had passed through the 160 kilometer-wide (100-km-wide) waterway that separates Taiwan from southeastern China. It said the carrier, which was accompanied by warships, had not entered Taiwan’s territorial waters, but had ventured into the self-ruled island nation’s air defense identification zone.

The Defense Ministry urged calm, and local media reports said Taipei had dispatched fighter jets to monitor the warships.

“The military is monitoring the whole situation and will act as necessary. We urge Taiwan’s people to be at ease,” it said in a statement early Wednesday.

By midday, the ministry said the carrier was moving north along the mainland’s coast.

“There is currently no navy or air force activity out of the ordinary,” it said.

The carrier was returning from high-profile exercises in the disputed South China Sea, where it was testing weapons and maneuvers, to its home port in the northern city of Qingdao.

Last month, ahead of the drills in the South China Sea, the Liaoning, accompanied by three guided-missile destroyers and two frigates, cruised into the Western Pacific Ocean for the first time via the waterway between Okinawa and Miyako Island.

China has ramped up its military moves near Taiwan in recent weeks after a congratulatory phone call by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Tsai’s transit in recent days of through the United States threatened to upend decades of diplomatic status quo under the so-called one-China policy.

Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold — by force, if necessary.

A Chinese spokesperson on Wednesday warned of “increasing uncertainties, risks and challenges” in relations with Taiwan in 2017, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

“Taiwan saw major changes to its political landscape in 2016 and the cross-Strait situation became more complicated,” Ma Xiaoguang, with the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, was quoted as saying.

Ma said that the changes last year show that “only by sticking to the 1992 consensus, which reflects the one-China principle, could cross-Strait ties see steady development and develop further, while destroying this political foundation would see a storm gather over the Strait.”

The show of force by Beijing has stoked concern in Tokyo and Taipei over China’s growing military might, and that it might use this to reinforce its claims to disputed territory.

China has reclaimed more than 1,280 hectares (3,200 acres) of land on seven features it occupies in the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly chain. The U.S. says the man-made islets give it long-term “civil-military” outposts from where it can project power.

The recent carrier drills are likely to put more muscle behind Beijing’s moves in the disputed South China Sea — and beyond.

According to a commentary Sunday in the Chinese state-run People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, the Liaoning will continue to operate deeper into the Pacific.

“The first island chain can no longer impact the Chinese military to any great extent. Crossing it has become the new normal, ” the commentary said in reference to a strategically important entryway into the Western Pacific that includes Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan.

“The aircraft carrier is not an otaku,” it said, referring to a Japanese term whose original meaning has morphed in Chinese usage to mean shut-in, or hikikomori in Japanese. “It will sooner or later cross the second island chain (east of Japan) and reach the Eastern Pacific.”

The Soviet-built Liaoning, refurbished by China, was only described as having a “real combat capacity” by defense officials in November. It had previously been portrayed in Chinese media as a surface platform for tests and training.

The carrier, which was purchased as an incomplete hull from Ukraine in 1998, was commissioned in 2012.

China is also in the process of constructing its first indigenously built carrier. The Defense Ministry said in October that work was proceeding smoothly, with the hull having already been assembled. </s> Taiwan scrambled jets Wednesday as China's sole aircraft carrier led Chinese warships through the Taiwan Strait amid heightened tensions between the mainland and self-governing island it claims as its own territory, Reuters reported.

A ministry statement said the Liaoning was traveling northwest along the center line dividing the strait, along with its battle group.

It said the military was closely monitoring the vessels' passage and urged the public not to be alarmed. Taiwan regularly dispatches planes and ships to keep a watchful eye on Chinese forces' movements around the island, although the ministry statement gave no details about the military's response.

The carrier was on its way back from its first journey to the Western Pacific, where it carried out a training exercise.

Based on a Soviet-built platform and commissioned in 2012, the Liaoning earlier this month carried out what Beijing called routine combat drills in the South China Sea which Beijing claims almost in its entirety and has fortified with man-made islands. That followed China's November declaration that the carrier and its complement of J-15 fighter jets was combat ready, setting off jitters in an already tense region.

The Liaoning set off for the Western Pacific last month, passing through the Miyako Strait, south of Okinawa, and then the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines as it entered the South China Sea.

Japanese and Taiwanese surveillance aircraft and ships closely monitored the Liaoning along its journey, seen by some as a sign of how China plans to use the carrier to demonstrate its willingness to back up its territorial claims with military muscle.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has never renounced its threat to use force if it considers that necessary to prevent the island's permanent independence from the mainland.

Relations between the sides have deteriorated badly since Taiwanese elected independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen last year, and Chinese officials have warned of more turbulence ahead unless she endorses Beijing's view that Taiwan is part of China.

China has been steadily ratcheting-up the economic and political pressure on Tsai, discouraging Chinese tourists from visiting the island of 23 million and intervening to prevent its participation in international forums. That has fueled speculation that Beijing will seek to win away more of the island's dwindling number of diplomatic allies, which now stand at just 21.

"Looking ahead in 2017, the development of cross-strait relations faces increased levels of uncertainty and the challenge of risk has risen," Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office, told reporters at a bi-weekly briefing on Wednesday.

Ma said he had no information on the Liaoning's passage through the Taiwan Strait and referred questions on the matter to the Defense Ministry, which did not immediately respond.

Having been thoroughly overhauled in China, the Liaoning represents a new degree of sophistication in the Chinese armed forces that includes ballistic missile submarines and prototype stealth fighters.

China announced in 2015 that it was building additional carriers entirely with domestic technology.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Taiwan condemns China after two PLAAF fighter jets pass the maritime line on the Taiwan Strait. Though there was no immediate response from China, the move comes after a week when the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard sent ships through the Strait.