TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday said the Chinese military fired 27 rockets from Fujian, with 10 falling within Taiwan's contiguous zone, a move it said posed a serious threat to international aviation safety.
Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升), deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence, said the PLA fired two salvos of rockets between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Tuesday from the Pingtan and Quanzhou areas of Fujian, per UDN. The first salvo consisted of 17 rockets that landed approximately 70 nautical miles (129 km) northeast of Keelung.
The second salvo comprised 10 rockets that landed approximately 50 nautical miles west of Tainan. Hsieh said that their impact points were between Taiwan's 12-nautical-mile territorial border and the 24-nautical-mile contiguous zone.
Hsieh said that, compared to the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, this is the closest the rockets have come to landing on Taiwan’s main island. He said the drills not only threatened Taiwan but also jeopardized international aviation safety, with 941 international civilian flights affected, along with some commercial and fishing vessels within the exercise areas, per CNA.
In addition, Hsieh said that from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 71 PLA aircraft were detected, including 35 that crossed the median line into northern, central, and southwestern air defense identification zone. In addition, 13 PLA vessels, 15 China coast guard ships, and a four-ship amphibious assault group in the Western Pacific were tracked.
Eleven PLA ships and eight Chinese coast guard vessels entered the contiguous zone. No Chinese ships entered Taiwan’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters.
Article 33 of UNCLOS defines the contiguous zone as a zone connected to the territorial sea of a state. It says that the zone “may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.”
The article stipulates that within this zone, a state may exert control necessary to prevent the breach of its “customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea. In addition, the state may punish the infringement of these laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.”
