Taiwan says China flew 25 warplanes into its airspace in the largest breach yet

• Taiwan said China flew 25 warplanes into its air defence identification zone on Monday.
• It's China's biggest breach since Taiwan started reporting Chinese plane movements last year, reports say.
• The US recently warned of China's "increasingly aggressive actions" against Taiwan.

Taiwan's defense ministry said that China flew 25 warplanes into its air defence identification zone on Monday, in what appears to be its largest breach yet.

The Ministry of National Defense said in a statement that 25 People Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft entered Taiwan's southwest zone on Monday.

The South China Morning Post and CNN reported that this was China's biggest breach of Taiwanese airspace since Taiwan started making its tracking of PLA aircraft movements public last September.

Taiwan said its air force responded with patrol aircraft and by tracking the China's aircraft with missile defense systems, Bloomberg reported.

Taiwan's statement came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was seeing "increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan."

China claims Taiwan as its own, but the island has been self-ruling for decades.

Blinken said: "All I can tell you is we have a serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific.

"We stand behind those commitments. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change that status quo by force."