TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Chinese military pressure on Taiwan intensified last week as 29 aircraft operated near the island, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND, 國防部) reported on Monday (April 28). Defense officials noted that 16 of these aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait — the unofficial maritime boundary between Taiwan and mainland China — penetrating airspace in multiple regions around the island. The military presence extended beyond air operations, with 10 Chinese naval vessels and four government ships navigating waters surrounding Taiwan.
Sunday marked particularly heightened activity, with defense officials detecting a formation of Chinese support aircraft operating in Taiwan's northern airspace throughout the morning hours. The situation escalated throughout the day as 22 Chinese aircraft — a mix of fighter jets, support planes, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and helicopters — conducted operations over the Taiwan Strait. Ten of these aircraft deliberately breached the median line, an action Taiwan considers a provocative violation of the longstanding tacit agreement between the two sides.
The military incursions followed distinct patterns, with five Chinese fighter and support aircraft operating in Taiwan's southwestern air defense zone for nearly 11 hours on Sunday. Simultaneously, a solitary unmanned aerial vehicle conducted surveillance in eastern airspace for more than four hours. Taiwan's defense ministry emphasized that its forces maintained comprehensive situational awareness throughout these provocations, responding with its own aircraft patrols, naval deployments, and the activation of land-based missile defense systems.
In a separate development, defense officials reported that China launched a satellite-carrying rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (西昌衛星發射中心) in southwestern China just before midnight on Sunday. The rocket's flight path traversed central Taiwan's airspace before continuing toward the western Pacific Ocean. While this particular launch was assessed as non-threatening, the ministry emphasized that Taiwan's military maintains continuous monitoring of all such activities as part of its heightened vigilance protocols. ★