Taiwan: ‘Record number’ of China jets enter airspace

Taiwan has said a record number of Chinese military jets flew into its airspace on Monday.

The defence ministry said 25 aircraft including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers entered its so-called air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Monday.

The incursion is the largest in a year and comes as the US warns against an “increasingly aggressive China”.

Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province.

However, democratic Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.

The latest Chinese mission involved 18 fighter jets, as well as four bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons, two anti-submarine aircraft and an early warning aircraft, Taiwan said.

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The defence ministry added they dispatched combat aircraft to warn the Chinese jets, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them.

China has carried out regular flights over the international waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the Taiwanese-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea in recent months.

Monday’s incursion also saw the jets fly into the ADIZ to the south-west of Taiwan near the Pratas Islands.

The latest incident came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was concerned about China’s “increasingly aggressive actions” towards Taiwan.

In an interview with NBC he reiterated that the US had a legal commitment to Taiwan and said Washington would “make sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself”, adding that it would be a “serious mistake for anyone to try to change the status quo by force”.

Analysts say Beijing is becoming increasingly concerned that Taiwan’s government is moving the island towards a formal declaration of independence and wants to warn President Tsai Ing-wen against taking steps in that direction.

President Tsai, however, has repeatedly said that Taiwan is already an independent state, making any formal declaration unnecessary.

The island has its own constitution, military, and democratically elected leaders.

China has not ruled out the possible use of force to achieve unification with Taiwan.

China and Taiwan: The basics
China and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has long tried to limit Taiwan’s international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region
Tensions have increased in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back
Although Taiwan is officially recognised by only a handful of nations, its democratically elected government has strong commercial and informal links with many countries
Like most nations, the US has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but a US law does require it to provide the island with the means to defend itself

Last month, China banned Taiwanese pineapple imports, citing the risk of “harmful creatures” that could affect its own crops.

The move infuriated Taiwan’s leaders, who said the move had nothing to do with bugs, and was instead an example of China ramping up political pressure on the island, which Beijing considers a province of China.

In response, Taiwan’s leaders sought out new customers overseas, and asked locals to eat what Chinese consumers no longer could.

“Taiwanese pineapples are stronger than fighter jets. Geopolitical pressures cannot squeeze their deliciousness,” declared Taiwan’s Vice President Lai Ching-te, in a tweet.

According to Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture, the island produces 420,000 tonnes of pineapple annually, and exported a little over 10% of that last year, with almost all of it going to China.

Without mainland sales, Taiwanese growers face a possible glut of pineapples, and with it a danger that prices might fall.

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Freedom pineapples
President Tsai Ing-wen launched a “pineapple challenge” on social media, aimed at getting Taiwanese consumers to buy more of the fruit.

aiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu used his Ministry’s Twitter account to “urge like-minded friends around the globe to stand with #Taiwan & rally behind the #FreedomPineapple”.

The de facto embassies of the US and Canada in Taiwan were happy to oblige.

The American Institute in Taiwan posted a number of pictures to its Facebook page, including one of its director Brent Christensen with three pineapples on his desk.

The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei posted a photo of staff posing around a pineapple pizza, with a polite reminder that it was Canada’s idea rather than Hawaii’s.

“We in the Canadian Office like pineapple pizza, especially pineapples from Taiwan!” the post said.

Japanese consumers might have made the biggest difference, with orders for 5,000 tonnes coming from Japan, Ms Tsai said.

Many Japanese Twitter users also expressed their support.

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“I will definitely buy some. I tried it last year and realized that even its core is eatable. Now I love its juicy sweet taste,” one user wrote.

Within just a few days the Taiwanese government’s campaign led to enough orders to cover the pineapples that would have been exported to China.

That still leaves the 90% of pineapples growers usually sell domestically, so they will be hoping that consumers don’t get sick of the taste.

Yang Yufan, a well-known organic pineapple grower from Southern Taiwan, has become known as the “pineapple prince”.

He told BBC Chinese that in recent years Taiwanese growers had gravitated to the Chinese market, because inspections were easier and faster than in other markets like Japan.

But he said Taiwan’s agriculture sector needed to diversify because too much of its exports go to mainland China.

“The pineapples we hope to harvest next year will [have been] sown last year, so the problems we will face next year may be even greater,” he said.