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.
