https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11573869/China-deploys-71-warplanes-skies-Taiwan-chilling-strike-drill-blames-US.html
By RUTH BASHINSKY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 01:53 EST, 26 December 2022 | UPDATED: 02:15 EST, 26 December 2022
China deployed 71 warplanes to skies around Taiwan in a chilling 'strike drill', then blamed the US for 'provocations' and 'collusion' with self-governing island - in one of the biggest daily incursions to date.
Sixty fighter jets took part in the drills, including six Su-30 warplanes, some of China's most advanced, Taipei's defense ministry said in a Twitter post on Monday.
The People's Liberation Army said it had conducted a 'strike drill' on Sunday in response to unspecified 'provocations' and 'collusion' between the United States and the self-ruled island.
Data from Taiwan's defense ministry showed those drills were one of the largest since they started releasing daily tallies.
Forty-seven of the sorties crossed into the island's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the third-highest daily incursion on record, according to AFP's database.
by China, which claims the democratic island as part of its territory, to be taken one day.
In September, President Biden went on the record and said US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. The statement drew an angry response from China.
Biden said during a CBS 60 Minutes interview that US forces would defend Taiwan, 'if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack,' Reuters reported.
The President appeared to go beyond long-standing stated US policy on Taiwan. The US has stuck to a policy of 'strategic ambiguity' - not making clear on whether it would respond with their forces if there was an attack on Taiwan, the news outlet said.
Beijing has ramped up military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan under President Xi Jinping as relations have deteriorated.
One of the pressure tactics China has increasingly used is probing Taiwan's ADIZ with its warplanes.
So far this year, there have bee more than 1,700 such incursions compared with 969 in 2021 and 146 in 2020.
China did not specify the number of aircraft mobilized for Sunday's exercises, nor the exact location of these maneuvers.
Taiwan's daily tally showed most of the incursions crossed the 'median line' which runs down the Taiwan Strait that separates the two sides, while a smaller number went through Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ.
Many nations maintain air defense identification zones, including the United States, Canada, South Korea, Japan and China.
They are not the same as a country's airspace. Instead, they encompass a much wider area, in which any foreign aircraft is expected to announce itself to local aviation authorities.
Taiwan's ADIZ is much larger than its airspace. It overlaps part of China's ADIZ and even includes some of the mainland.The PLA said Sunday's exercises were 'a firm response to the escalating collusion and provocations by the US and the Taiwanese authorities'.
Beijing has been incensed by US President Joe Biden's handling of Taiwan – especially after he said Washington would defend it militarily if attacked by China.
The prospect of a Chinese invasion has increasingly rattled both Western nations and many of China's neighbors.
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China-backed media outlet Global Times said Pelosi's trip can put Washington and Beijing on the 'brink of war.'