Taiwan shoots down drone for first time off Chinese coast

A backlash from the Taipei government, which claims Taiwan is its own Beijing, has been holding military exercises in Taiwan since early last month in response to a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei.

Taiwan’s government has said it will not provoke or escalate tensions, but has been particularly angry recently over the frequent buzzing of Chinese drones on Taiwan-controlled islands close to China’s coast.

The Kinmen Defense Command, a group of Taiwan-controlled islands opposite China’s Xiamen and Quanzhou, said in a statement issued by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry that the drone entered the lion just after noon (0400 GMT). Island’s restricted airspace.

It added that forces on the island tried to warn it to leave, but to no avail, so it was shot down and the wreckage landed in the sea.

Taiwan fired warning shots at drones for the first time on Tuesday, shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen ordered the military to take “strong countermeasures” against what she called China’s provocation.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday dismissed Taiwan’s complaints about the drones as “nothing to make a fuss about” and referred the issue to the defense ministry, which has yet to comment.

Qiu Chui, deputy director of Taiwan’s Mainland China Policy Making Committee, told reporters in Taipei that Taiwan has the legal power to take “necessary defensive measures” because Chinese planes are not allowed to enter Kinmen’s airspace.

Those measures include forcing planes to take off or land, he said.

Tsai told the armed forces earlier on Thursday that China was using drones and other “gray area” tactics to intimidate Taiwan, her office quoted her as saying in a statement.

Tsai Ing-wen reiterated that Taiwan will not provoke disputes, but that does not mean that countermeasures will not be taken.

“She also ordered the Ministry of Defense to take necessary and strong countermeasures in a timely manner to safeguard national security,” it said.

“Let the military be fearless, have confidence, and defend the country.”

Taiwan has taken control of Kinmen, just a few hundred meters (feet) from the closest point to Chinese territory, after the defeated government of the Republic of China fled to Taipei after a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949.

During the height of the Cold War, China routinely shelled Kinmen and other Taiwan-controlled islands off China’s coast, but they are now tourist destinations.