The Taiwan defenses spotted 21 Chinese military aircraft entering the island's air defense identification zone, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry has stated.
The ministry elaborated that the group of aircraft, which entered the south-western side of the identification zone before quickly turning back, included eight J-11 fighter jets, ten J-16 multirole jets, a KJ-500 AEW&C early warning and control aircraft, a Shaanxi Y-9 EW electronic warfare aircraft and a Y-8 ELINT intelligence-gathering plane.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said that the island issued radio warnings and deployed air defenses, while also scrambling jets for a response.
The Chinese jets' brief incursion into the air defense identification zone of Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China sees as a part of its territory, comes in the wake of military drills that were announced on August 2 and are due to be held that same night.
The sudden announcement of the war games came right after the news broke of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arriving in Taiwan as the first official visit of a US politician of such rank in decades. Pelosi insisted that her trip did not violate the US' approach towards Taiwan and the One-China principle, and called the visit a token of respect for the island's democracy.
Beijing strongly condemned Pelosi's visit and repeatedly demanded that the US cancel it. China insists that it goes against the Sino-US communiques issued to address the Taiwan issue, and labeled the House speaker's trip as a huge political provocation.