China stages aerial ‘military parade’ with record sorties near Taiwan

China‘s military staged a massive show of intimidation over the Taiwan Strait over the weekend, dispatching bombers, fighter jets and other aircraft into Taiwan‘s defensive air space in two waves Friday and Saturday, by far the biggest such incursion in recent years.

The sorties, which brought a warning from the Biden administration condemning Beijing‘s “coercion,” were hailed by China‘s nationalistic, state-controlled Global Times as the equivalent of staging a “National Day military parade” in the skies above the 100-mile waterway separating the mainland from Taiwan, which China‘s Communist leaders consider an integral part of the country and have vowed one day to reclaim.