Civilian Aircraft Approaches Taiwan Territory, China's New Strategy Tests Taipei's Military Reaction?

Illustration of Chinese and Taiwanese flags (Source: Stanford.News.edu)

JAKARTA - A small Chinese civilian plane flew very close to a remote Taiwan-controlled island off China's coast earlier this month, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday, adding China may try a new strategy to test its reaction.

Taiwan has complained for the past two years of repeated Chinese military activity nearby, with most of China's air force flying into Taiwan's air defense identification zones off its southwest and southern coasts, despite being relatively far from Taiwan itself.

Claiming Taiwan as its own territory, China is waging a 'grey zone war' designed to weaken the island's air force and test its capabilities.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the plane flew very close to Dongyin, part of the Matsu Islands off the coast of China's Fujian province, on February 5.

Having previously not identified the plane, the ministry said it had confirmed it was a Chinese civilian Y-12 aircraft, a twin-engine light aircraft.

"Regarding the Dongyin incident, of course we have made a preliminary assessment, and we cannot rule out that they used civilian aircraft to test our military response," ministry spokesman Shih Shun-wen told reporters.

"The military will definitely take appropriate action, but will take various emergency measures without any minor incident sparking war," said Shun-wen.

Further, the ministry said the plane entered a "defense reaction zone" but did not enter its territory in Matsu, which Taiwan defines as water and air space stretching six km from the coastline. China does not officially recognize any claim to sovereignty by Taiwan.

Shih Shun-wen declined to provide details on how Taiwanese forces reacted to the incident, citing military secrecy. Meanwhile, China's Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese media have brought up footage of the plane flying right next to Dongyin, and said residents can see and hear it clearly.

To note, the Matsu Islands have been controlled by Taiwan since the Government of the Republic of China fled to Taipei in 1949, after losing a civil war with the Communists.

The Matsu islands are not as heavily guarded as they were until the late 1970s, when China frequently opened fire on them, but Taiwan still maintains military forces there.

Taiwan also controls the much larger island of Kinmen and several smaller islands off the coast of Fujian opposite the Chinese city of Xiamen, and the Pratas Islands at the northern end of the South China Sea.

On the same occasion, Shun-wen denied Taiwan media reports, which said a Chinese military aircraft last week entered Pratas airspace. He said China may be trying to "create chaos" by spreading false information online.