A Chinese balloon was spotted crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, according to the island’s Defense Ministry, as the self-ruled democracy heads toward its Jan. 13 presidential election.
Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said Friday that it may have been a weather monitoring balloon. Beijing, which claims the island, has been increasing its military pressure on Taipei ahead of the election, with its aircraft and ships having in recent years ignored the boundary that had been respected by both sides for decades.
The ministry, in a statement, said the balloon was detected around noon Thursday, 187 kilometers southwest of the northern Taiwanese port city of Keelung at an altitude of approximately 6,400 meters before it headed east and later disappeared.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a news conference on Friday that he was “not aware of the case, and this is not a diplomatic matter,” underlining Beijing’s stance that Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan’s presidential election will see the ruling Democratic Progressive Party nominee Vice…
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