China sent an aircraft carrier and more than 100 military jets into waters off Taiwan and mobilised ground troops and its rocket force in what it called a “stern warning” to the island after its president insisted that it would not yield to Beijing.
Taiwan responded by scrambling its own jets and ships, in the worst military tension for six months in the Taiwan Strait, which divides the island from the mainland.
Military forces were put on alert on the small offshore islands belonging to Taiwan, some of which are just a few hundred metres off the Chinese mainland, making them extremely vulnerable to attack. The authorities said a Chinese man was arrested in a dinghy off Kinmen island, in what they said may