China has never renounced the use of force to bring democratic Taiwan under its control and has been ramping up military activity around the island, including repeatedly flying war planes into Taiwan's air defence zone. Taiwan's defence ministry, in a report it issues every two years, said China had launched what it called "gray zone" warfare, citing 554 "intrusions" by Chinese war planes into its southwestern theatre of air defence identification zone between September last year and the end of August.
Military analysts say the tactic is aimed at subduing Taiwan through exhaustion, Reuters reported last year.
