Three Chinese ships, including the aircraft carrier Shandong, crossed the Taiwan Strait on Saturday. This was indicated by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense.
"A three-ship PLA (People's Liberation Army) flotilla, led by the aircraft carrier Shandong, passed through the Taiwan Strait around noon today," the ministry said in a statement.
The ships headed "west of the median line towards the north," he added, referring to the invisible border unilaterally drawn by the United States during the Cold War, which Beijing refuses to recognize.
While the presence of Chinese warships in the Taiwan Strait is constantly monitored and announced almost daily by Taipei, that of the aircraft carrier Shandong is unusual.
Taiwan's armed forces "monitored the situation and tasked (civilian air patrol) aircraft, navy ships and land-based missile systems to respond to these activities," the ministry said.
On Saturday, 33 warplanes and 10 ships were "detected at 6 a.m.," according to the island's defense ministry. The day before, 11 vessels were in the vicinity of Taiwanese waters.
Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, China has regarded Taiwan as a province it has not yet managed to reunify with the rest of its territory.
Show of force
Relations between Beijing and Taipei, at their lowest since Xi Jinping came to power more than 10 years ago, have further deteriorated in recent years and China has stepped up military incursions around the island.
Beijing's latest show of force comes just over a month after the end of its major Chinese military maneuvers around the island in April, which aimed to encircle Taiwan for three days.
During those exercises, Beijing simulated targeted bombing of the autonomous island and an encirclement of Taiwan, whose authorities had detected 12 Chinese warships and 91 aircraft on the last day of operations.
Fighter jets were also deployed from the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong and crossed the middle line, Taiwan's defense ministry said at the time.
China's military maneuvers came days after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to which Beijing had promised to respond.
