Taiwan rebukes China over record fighter jet incursion

Taiwan accused Beijing of bullying and damaging regional peace on Oct. 2 after Chinese fighter jets and bombers made their largest ever incursion into the island's air defence zone.

Beijing marked its National Day on Friday with its biggest aerial show of force against Taiwan to date, buzzing the self-ruled democratic island with 38 warplanes, including nuclear-capable H-6 bombers.

Democratic Taiwan's 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by China which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.
Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese warplanes are crossing into Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on a near daily basis.

But Friday's incursion sparked a particularly sharp rebuke from Taipei.
"China has been bellicose and damaging regional peace while engaging in many bullying acts," Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters Saturday.
"It's evident that the world, the international community, rejects such behaviours by China more and more."

Taiwan's defence ministry said it scrambled its aircraft to broadcast warnings after 22 fighters, two bombers and one anti-submarine aircraft entered the island's southwest ADIZ on Friday.
A second batch of 13 jets then crossed into Taiwan's ADIZ later on Friday, in a rare night incursion, bringing the total to a record 38, according to the ministry.
The ADIZ is not the same as Taiwan's territorial airspace but includes a far greater area that overlaps with part of China's own air defence identification zone and even includes some of mainland China.

Mass incursions used to be rare.
But in the last two years Beijing has begun sending large sorties into Taiwan's ADIZ to signal...