Taiwan has urged its citizens to remain calm after a Chinese aircraft carrier entered the Taiwan Strait in a highly symbolic show of strength.
Taiwan’s defence ministry reported on Wednesday that China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier and accompanying naval vessels had gone into an area covered by the island’s air defence zone at 07:00 local time (23:00 GMT).
Taiwanese media said that F-16 fighter jets and other aircraft were dispatched to monitor the Chinese carrier group.
“The military is monitoring the whole situation and will act as necessary. We urge Taiwan’s people to be at ease,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
The Liaoning, a refitted Russian-made carrier, made its first live-fire exercise earlier this month in the Yellow Sea, the Bohai Sea and East China Sea.
By midday the aircraft carrier was moving north along the mainland’s coast, the ministry added.
“There is no need for us to overly panic,” the chairwoman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which handles the island’s relationship with Beijing, said.
