China used military drills to practice attacking Taiwan from the Pacific Ocean — an area traditionally dominated by the U.S. and its Asian allies.
. As of 11 a.m. local time, 14 aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary down the middle of the waterway, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry reported.
The self-governing island democracy’s 23 million residents have shown little interest in submitting to rule by Beijing, but that hasn’t stopped China from regularly threatening to take control by force.Tsai, responding to the drills on Monday, said China’s behavior was “not the approach of a responsible regional power.”
Taiwanese defense experts often warn of Beijing’s gradual effort to gain ground in the cross-strait military standoff by adopting “gray zone” tactics that encroach on the status quo while stopping short of a direct confrontation. The growing frequency and scale of China’s operations — as well as American efforts to work with allies to counter Beijing — have caused a spike in military activity throughout the region.
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