On Tuesday, just after President Tsai Ing-wen said that she had instructed Taiwan’s military to take “strong countermeasures” against what she considered Chinese provocations, they fired warning shots at a Chinese drone that circled an offshore islet.
It was the first time that such cautionary shots had been fired during a time when tensions between the countries were at an all-time high. Vehemently rejects China’s claims of sovereignty while Beijing sees the island as its own.
After the rounds were fired, the drone returned to China, according to a military spokeswoman.
As part of military manoeuvres by Beijing, They have periodically protested about Chinese drones flying close to tiny groupings of islands it controls along the Chinese coast, most notably the Kinmen islands.
Since U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island this month against Beijing’s desires, China has undertaken drills surrounding the country.
According to Chang Jung-shun, a spokesman for the Kinmen Defence Command, live bullets were fired at the drone as it neared Erdan islet just before 6 p.m. local time (1 000 GMT) earlier in the day using flares. The drone then took off again for China, according to him.
China was not immediately responsive. Their accusations over the drones had been disregarded as nothing “to make a fuss” about by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday.
Under the condition of anonymity, U.S. officials claimed that it looked like China was employing drones to annoy the Taiwanese rather than escalating the conflict.
However, they stressed that they were keeping a careful eye on the situation and were worried about accidents in general.
On Chinese social media, footage from at least two drone missions showing soldiers at their stations and, in one instance, hurling rocks at a drone, has gone viral.
Tsai criticised China earlier on Tuesday when touring the military forces on the Penghu islands for its use of drones and other forms of “grey zone” warfare.
She didn’t go into detail about the defence ministry’s response she had mandated.
“I want to tell everyone that the more the enemy provokes, the calmer we must be,” Tsai told naval officers. “We will not provoke disputes, and we will exercise self-restraint, but it does not mean that we will not counter.”
The Kinmen islands lie directly across from the Chinese towns of Xiamen and Quanzhou and are only a few hundred yards away from Chinese soil at their closest point.
