A mainland warplane broke into Taiwanese airspace on Sunday morning and ignored warnings to leave, the latest in a string of flagrant incursions into the island’s territory by the Chinese military.

The latest breach was reportedly made at about 8:30AM on Sunday morning by a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft in the island’s southwest air defence identification zone, according to Taiwanese media.

The plane from the People’s Liberation Army entered the airspace at an altitude of 4,000 meters and ignored at least two warnings to leave broadcast by the Taiwanese air force, the reports added.

The warnings were ignored because the Chinese military does not believe the air space belongs to Taiwan, the reports claimed.

Beijing has made it clear that it does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty, and considers it to be a renegade province that should be taken back by force if necessary.

On Friday, Taiwan’s defence ministry reported that China had either threatened to enter or actually entered its air space 46 times in the preceding nine days.

Several of these incidents involved Y-8 warplanes in the same area as Sunday’s incursion, and led to Taiwan scrambling fighter planes or deploying air defence missile systems.

A Chinese spy ship, which had been monitored in waters east of Taiwan for more than a week, finally left the area on Saturday after the Taiwanese navy sent a ship to monitor it.

Also on Sunday, a PLA Air Force KJ-500 early warning and control aircraft appeared close to Taiwanese airspace off the coast of Shantou, Guangdong province, at an altitude of 6,900 meters. Taiwanese fighter planes monitored the aircraft from high altitude.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Minister Joseph Wu plans to warn on Monday that Taiwan has become China’s next “target” after Hong Kong. According to Taiwanese media reports, Wu plans to tell the Legislative Yuan that Beijing is looking for scapegoats to blame for its internal and external crises.

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