Warplanes of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) again surrounded the island of Taiwan from both west and east in an exercise on Monday after a similar drill on Friday, and this time additional aircraft crossed the Miyako Strait to reach Taiwan's eastern side.
The recent exercises show that the PLA is continuing to increase its combat preparedness by making its routine exercises more complex and realistic and taking possible US and Japanese interventions into consideration, Chinese mainland analysts said on Tuesday.
Some 10 PLA aircraft - four J-16 and four J-10 fighter jets, a KJ-500 early warning aircraft and a Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft - entered Taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone on Monday, with the Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft flying across the Bashi Channel to the southeast to the island before returning, the island's defense authorities said.
