Taiwan's military fires warning shots at Chinese drone

Taiwan fired warning shots at a Chinese drone which buzzed an offshore islet on Tuesday,shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen said she had ordered Taiwan's military to take "strong countermeasures" against what she termed Chinese provocations.

It was the first time warning shots have been fired in such an incident amid a period of heightened tension between China and Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory. Taiwan strongly disputes China's sovereignty claims.

The drone headed back to China after the shots were fired, a military spokesperson said.

Taiwan has complained of Chinese drones repeatedly flying very close to small groups of islands it controls near China's coast, most recently by the Kinmen islands, as part of military drills by Beijing.

China carried out large-scale military exercises around the island after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month, which raised tensions between the superpowers.

Beijing yet to comment on incident

Kinmen defence command spokesman Chang Jung-shun said the live rounds were fired just before 6 p.m. at the drone thathad approached Erdan islet, with flares being used previously. The drone then flew off back to China, he said.

There was no immediate response from China. On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed Taiwan's complaints about the drones as nothing "to make a fuss about."

Footage of at least two drone missions showing Taiwanese soldiers at their posts, and in one case throwing rocks at a drone, have circulated widely on Chinese social media.

Speaking earlier on Tuesday while visiting the armed forces on the Penghu islands, Tsai criticized China for its drone and other "grey zone" warfare activity.

"I want to tell everyone that the more the enemy provokes, the more calm 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."

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She said she had ordered the defence ministry to take "necessary and strong countermeasures" to defend their airspace. She did not elaborate.

The Kinmen islands are at their closest point just a few hundred metres from Chinese territory, opposite China's Xiamen and Quanzhou cities.

Ships just hundreds of metres apart

Officers told reporters accompanying Tsai that warships and fighter jets based at Penghu which lies in the Taiwan Strait closer to Taiwan than China have been going out armed with live ammunition since China began its exercises this month though they have not opened fire.

Frigate captain Lee Kuang-ping said they had regularly traded radio warnings with Chinese warships.

"Sometimes near the drill zone communist Chinese fishing boats appear, and they provocatively say 'hit them, hit them!'" Lee said.

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On a Facebook post citing a navy commander in Penghu, Tsai said ships from both sides came as close as 475-550 metres to each other and Taiwan ships "strictly monitored" their Chinese counterparts.

The Chinese military unit responsible for the area adjacent to Taiwan, the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command, released on Aug. 15 a video of the Penghu islandsapparently taken by China's air force.

Taiwan's military termed the video information warfare, accusing China of exaggeration and saying it was not true Chinese forces had come near the islands.

Defence budget boost proposed

Taiwan's armed forces are well-equipped but dwarfed by China's.

Taiwan last week proposed $19 billion US in defence spending for its next budget, including for fighter jets, representing a 14 per cent increase over the current budget.

Asked about the Chinese drone activities earlier on Tuesday, Taiwan's Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said he could not give details on what they would do to counter the incursions but he said the military would react based on the principle of "self defence."

"Don't make a fuss then when I set off some firecrackers to scare away some sparrows," he told reporters in Taipei in a veiled warning to China.

Several American officials have visited Taiwan since Pelosi, irking Beijing.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, was to land in Taiwan on Tuesday for a three-day visit that includes meetings with Tsai and with companies in the semiconductor industry. The world's largest contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), is building a $12 billion US plant in Arizona.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Canada has issued a stern warning about the possibility of some Ottawa parliamentarians visiting Taiwan in the fall.