Taiwan tracked 34 planes and nine ships of the Chinese army near the island

BEIJING, Feb 1 – RIA Novosti. The Taiwanese armed forces over the past day recorded the approach of 34 aircraft and nine ships of the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) to the island, follows from the daily report of the Taiwanese defense department.

“During the period from 06:00 on January 31 to 06:00 on February 1, 34 aircraft and nine ships of the People’s Liberation Army of China were observed around Taiwan,” the report said.

It is noted that 20 PLA ​​aircraft entered the island’s air defense identification zone, including two Su-30 fighters, two J-11s, four J-10s, six J-16s, BZK-005 and BZK-007 drones, a Y- 8, a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft and two Y-8 electronic reconnaissance aircraft.

The PLA reduced activity around Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday, which lasted from January 21 to 27. The data of the island’s Ministry of Defense indicate that if on January 20 31 aircraft and four ships of the PLA were recorded around Taiwan, and on January 21 – 14 aircraft and three ships, then in the six days of the new year according to the lunar calendar, 33 aircraft and 22 ships of the PLA approached the island in total.

The situation around Taiwan escalated significantly after a visit to the island in early August last year by the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this move US support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises.

Official relations between the central government of the PRC and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in a civil war with the Communist Party of China, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.