Beijing issues warning to Taiwan: ‘War is real’

China sends record number of military flights near Taiwan, including 12 nuclear-capable bombers, warning it will ‘crush all attempts at independence’.

China flew a record 56 fighter jets near Taiwan on Monday as Beijing’s propaganda machine threatened “war is real”.

The latest wave of People’s Liberation Army Air Force aircraft included 12 nuclear-capable bombers.

“China will take all necessary measures to resolutely crush all attempts at ‘Taiwan independence’,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

As China’s foreign ministry in Beijing was telling off the US for its “irresponsible remarks” about the fraught situation in the Taiwan Strait, fellow Chinese diplomats were being dressed down in Malaysia.

China’s envoy to the Southeast Asian country was summoned on Monday evening in protest after Chinese vessels entered its maritime economic zone in the disputed South China Sea.

Kuala Lumpur summoned Chinese ambassador Ouyang Yujing “to convey Malaysia’s position and protest against the presence and activities of Chinese vessels, including a survey vessel, in Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone”, the Malaysian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Taiwan remains the main focus of China’s military activities.

Chinese J-20 stealth fighter jets. Picture: AFP

PLA jets have swarmed near the island in record numbers during China’s ongoing “Golden Week”, which began last Friday on National Day.

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China’s tub tubing tabloid the Global Times, said the planes were part of the country’s National Day military parade.

Taiwan — a self-ruled democracy, with a population the size of Australia — lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views the island as a wayward province.

In recent years, Beijing has sent large squadrons of military planes into Taiwan’s defence zone as part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation.

Nearly 150 Chinese warplanes have breached Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) since Friday.

The ADIZ is not the same as Taiwan’s territorial airspace. It includes a larger area and overlaps in part with China’s own air defence identification zone.

Chinese J-15 fighter jets on the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea, off China's east coast. Picture: AFP

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was “very concerned” by the “provocative” moves by Beijing.

“This activity is destabilising, it risks miscalculation and it undermines regional peace and security,” Price said on Monday.

“We strongly urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” he said, calling US commitment to the island “rock-solid”.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan’s top China policy-making body, accused Beijing of “seriously damaging the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait” with its recent string of incursions.

A PLA Navy fleet in the South China Sea. Picture: Getty Images

“We demand the Beijing authorities immediately stop its non-peaceful and irresponsible provocative actions,” MAC spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng said.

Beijing puts all the blame for the current tensions on the administration of Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen, her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and her partners in the US and elsewhere, including Australia.

In a menacing editorial published after Monday evening’s incursions, the Global Times said the “strategic collusion between the US and Japan and the DPP authorities [was] becoming more audacious”.

“Resolving the Taiwan question and realising national reunification has never become so weightier on the shoulders of all Chinese people,” said the Chinese Communist Party tabloid.

The party state mouthpiece said it was “time to warn Taiwan secessionists and their fomenters: war is real”.