Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that 19 Chinese military jets would appear within 24 hours they came in in the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), the airspace access to which is regulated and monitored for reasons of national security. Taiwan is in fact an independent state but China claims it as its own territory: in the last three years tensions with China have increased both due to the frequent Chinese military exercises around the island and because Taiwan is supported by the United States, which helped to raise diplomatic tensions between the two powers.
Taiwan has responded by alerting its forces and sending fighter jets, as is usually the case in such cases.
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