First Time Taiwan Has Shot Down A Drone Off The Coast Of China
The action near the islet comes after Taipei has pledged to take tough measures to deal with the increasing number of intrusions on the islet
In a bid to combat an increase in intrusions into its airspace, Taiwan’s military has shot down for the first time an unidentified civilian drone that entered its airspace near an islet off the coast of China, after the government vowed to take tough measures to deal with such intrusions.
As a reaction to the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taipei in early last month, Beijing has been conducting military exercises around the island, claiming the island as its own against the objections of Taipei.
Taiwan’s government has stressed that it will not provoke or escalate tensions with China, but it has been extremely angered by repeated instances of Chinese drones buzzing islands controlled by Taiwan that are near the coast of China in recent months.
In a statement released by Taiwan’s defense ministry, the command for Kinmen, a group of Taiwan-controlled islands to the south of Chinese cities Xiamen and Quanzhou, said that the drone entered restricted airspace over Lion Islet just after noon local time (0500 BST) on Tuesday.
There were troops on the islet who tried to warn the bird away but to no avail, so they shot it down, with the remains of the bird ending up in the sea.
The Taiwanese military fired warning shots at a drone for the first time on Tuesday, shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen had called for the military to take “strong countermeasures” against what she called Chinese provocations.
In a statement released by her office earlier on Thursday, Tsai was quoted as saying that China is continuing to use drone intrusions and other “grey zone” tactics to intimidate Taiwan in an attempt to intimidate the country.
The statement added that Taiwan would not provoke disputes, but that did not mean that it would not take countermeasures if a dispute did arise.
The statement went on to say that she had also ordered the ministry of national defense to take the necessary and strong countermeasures in a timely manner in order to defend national security.