Taiwan said on Sunday (Feb 11) that it detected eight more Chinese balloons crossing the Taiwan Strait in the last 24 hours. Taiwan’s defence ministry said that five of these eight balloons flew directly over the island. The balloons were spotted at an altitude of 12,000 to 35,000 feet, the news agency AFP reported. A map released by the ministry showed five of the balloons flew directly over the island, and one grazed its northern tip.
China has not commented on this development yet, which comes amid Beijing and Taipei currently celebrating the Lunar New Year holiday, the most important festival in the Chinese-speaking world.
Eight balloons detected on Friday
Earlier, a batch of eight balloons was detected on Friday, the highest number since the defence ministry started regularly releasing data on balloon sightings in December. In Jan, the Xi Jinping government dismissed repeated complaints by Taiwan about the balloons, saying they are for meteorological purposes and should not be hyped up for political reasons.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has not renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. In recent years, Beijing has ramped up military pressure, deploying warplanes and naval vessels around the island almost daily.
In Feb last year, the Taiwanese military alerted aviation authorities after it spotted a balloon floating in the island’s airspace but did not say where the balloon came from or provided a detailed location.
The latest balloon sightings come after Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan 13 which was won by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te. Ahead of the election, China had warned that Lai would bring “war and decline” to Taiwan, AFP reported.
However, Beijing did not send an oversised number of warplanes and naval vessels in the election’s immediate aftermath.
Taiwan has said that since the election, the largest incursions included 33 Chinese warplanes detected around the island.
Taiwan stops new group trips to China
Meanwhile, Taiwan has told travel agents on the island to stop organising new group tours to China since Beijing has yet to allow such trips to the island by Chinese tourists. Taiwan had initially planned to resume group tours for Taiwanese to China from March 1 after they were suspended during the Covid pandemic.
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“Considering the change in the situation”, including China not allowing Chinese to visit Taiwan and China’s altering of a flight route through the Taiwan Strait last week, Taiwanese travel agencies cannot arrange any more tours,” Taiwan’s tourism administration said in a statement.
Reacting to Taipei’s move, China’s Taiwan affairs office said, “This will only make the Taiwanese people and the tourism industry once again be dissatisfied with the political manipulation of tourism by the Democratic Progressive Party authorities.”
(With inputs from agencies)
