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China Sends Fighter Planes Into Taiwan’s Defense Zone

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – China sent 24 fighter planes, including two capable nuclear bombers, towards Taiwan on Thursday after the self-governing island said it plans to join an 11-nation Pacific trade group, the Taiwanese military said.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry confirmed that
China’s People’s Liberation Army flew fighter jets toward Taiwan twice on Thursday, once in the morning with 19 planes and once in the afternoon with five more.

The morning breach occurred in the same zone as many others of late – the southwest part of Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone, a buffer zone to track potentially hostile aircraft, Defense officials said.

However, Taiwan deployed air patrol forces in response to the Chinese jets and tracked them on its air defense systems, its Defense Ministry added said in a statement.

The worst airspace breaches in weeks came after attempts by Taiwan to become a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Last week Beijing, which views self-ruled democratic Taiwan as its province, submitted its application to become a member and insisted that Taiwan should not be allowed in.

Taiwan has lobbied for years to join and announced on Thursday that it had officially applied to be part of the CCTPP.

The CCTPP was signed by 11 Asia-Pacific countries in 2018 and is the region’s most significant free-trade pact, accounting for around 13.5 percent of the global economy.

“Taiwan can’t be left out in the world and has to integrate into the regional economy,” cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng told reporters.

Taipei views the breaches as an aggressive attempt by Beijing to prevent Taiwan from joining the pact and underline the island’s relationship with the United States.

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