Tension in Taiwan: “Taiwanese people don’t welcome thieves like this”

Taipei and Beijing have had heated exchanges over Chinese drone incursions over Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, some of which monitor military outposts. Photos and videos taken by these drones of the archipelago, located a few kilometers from the Chinese city of Xiamen, have been circulating on Chinese and Taiwanese social media. A video shows Taiwanese soldiers throwing rocks at a man to scare him.

Asked about the videos on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it was not an “extraordinary case” because the drones “fly around Chinese territory. The response angered Taipei, which likened the harassment of drones to the behavior of a “thief.” “Uninvited visitors. “Called thieves, whether they open the door or spy from the air, Taiwanese people do not welcome such thieves,” Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said in a press release late Monday. “The authoritarian expansionist government of the Chinese Communist Party has always made it a daily routine to harass other countries, hence its ‘regional troublemaker.’ The title is well deserved.”

Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion from Beijing, which considers the island part of its territory one day to retake it and, if necessary, by force. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait have reached their highest level in years arrival Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on the autonomous island in early August. China retaliated for a week with unprecedented ground and sea military maneuvers, including drone flights over the Kinmen Islands since the mid-1990s.

It is not clearly established who is flying these drones from mainland China. So far, Taiwan’s defense ministry has been content to shoot down such drones, but warned that it would take “necessary countermeasures,” including shooting down drones if necessary.