Taiwan’s air force needs to refine the warnings its pilots give to intruding mainland Chinese aircraft amid a war of words over how the two sides describe their boundary, a Taiwanese military expert suggested.

Last week, Taiwan pilots issued warnings to Chinese People’s Liberation Army flights for “crossing the midline of the strait.” On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin retorted that there was no such thing as “the midline of the strait.”

Currently, Taiwan’s air force would warn a Chinese flight spotted within the island’s air defense identification zone that it had crossed into Taiwan’s “air zone” and would demand it turn around and leave immediately.

Taiwan’s defense authorities should instead use the term “restricted entry zone” for warnings issued outside the island’s airspace, which is the atmosphere over the waters and land controlled by Taipei, said Chang Ching, a researcher at Taipei-based Society for Strategic Studies.

The term “restricted entry zone” had its root in Taiwan’s laws concerning cross-strait relations, Chang said.

The island would lose a buffer zone in air defense if it gave warnings to intruding flights only when they entered the island’s airspace, he said.

Pilots should take action such as interception, identification, repelling, guided landing or warning fire, according to their distance from the mainland aircraft, Chang said.

Beijing never officially recognized the midline since it was first proposed by the United States in the 1950s as an imaginary border to stop conflicts, Wang said on Monday.

Despite this, mainland vessels have traveled west of the midline when passing the strait since 1983, Wang said.

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