Taiwan spots Chinese weather balloon in strait month before election By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A ship sails between wind generators within the Taiwan strait off the coast of Pingtan Island, Fujian province, China, April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File picture

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan’s defence ministry mentioned on Friday {that a} Chinese language climate balloon had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line on Thursday, a few month earlier than Taiwan’s presidential election.

“Our preliminary understanding is that it was a sounding balloon,” Taiwan Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng advised reporters at parliament.

Taiwan, which China claims as its personal territory, often accuses Beijing of looking for to exert navy or financial stress to sway its elections towards outcomes beneficial to the Chinese language authorities.

The island will maintain presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13.

China has stepped up its navy stress towards Taiwan over the previous 4 years, together with staging two rounds of main battle video games across the island prior to now yr and a half.

The defence ministry mentioned the balloon was detected 101 nautical miles (187 km) southwest of the northern Taiwanese metropolis of Keelung, and travelled eastward for about an hour earlier than disappearing.

Earlier this yr, the defence ministry mentioned a balloon that got here down on a distant Taiwanese-held islet near China’s coast was used for climate monitoring and had no audio-visual recording tools on board.