TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) tracked nine Chinese military aircraft and six naval vessels around the country between 6 a.m. Monday (Oct. 23) and 6 a.m. Tuesday (Oct. 24).

The defense ministry said that nine People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) military aircraft and six People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels were detected. Of the detected aircraft, one entered the southwest sector of Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

The aircraft tracked in the ADIZ was a Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft (Y-8 ASW). It flew past the southwest edge of the median line and entered the southwest corner of the ADIZ to the northeast of the Dongsha Islands before returning to the Taiwan Strait.

The MND said it monitored the situation with its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system and, in response, scrambled combat patrol aircraft, dispatched naval vessels, and deployed land-based air defense missile systems.

Since September 2020, Beijing has increasingly employed the use of "gray zone tactics" in the form of deployments of military aircraft and naval vessels over the median line and inside Taiwan's ADIZ.

According to CSIS, gray zone tactics are “an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one’s security objectives without resorting to direct and sizable use of force."

Flightpath of Y-8 ASW in Taiwan's southwest ADIZ. (MND image)