Taiwan has fired shots at Chinese drones flying overhead for the first time in their history, according to the country's defence ministry.
Officials in Taipei confirmed they had discharged live rounds at a civilian drone near the Quemoy archipelago at around 6pm on Tuesday (August 30) following an incursion in their airspace.
A military spokesperson confirmed that the drone returned to China once the shots had been fired.
The incident occurred shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen said she had ordered Taiwan's military to take "strong countermeasures" against provocations from the Chinese mainland.
A U.S. official speaking anonymously to the media said China appeared to be using the devices to harass the Taiwanese, but was not necessarily seeking an escalation in hostilities.
Complaints from the Taiwanese government regarding the drones have grown in recent weeks after videos of army positions on the island ended up being circulated media on Chinese social media, with one piece of footage reportedly showing troops throwing rocks at the devices.
There was no immediate response to Tuesday's incident from Beijing, while the Chinese Foreign Ministry had earlier dismissed their public concerns about the drones on Monday as nothing "to make a fuss about".
Tensions in the South China Sea reached the highest point in a generation earlier this month when U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island despite furious protestations from the Chinese.
In response, Beijing deployed more than 100 warplanes and fired live missiles into the sea off Taiwan’s coast in its biggest ever military exercise.
Taiwan said 11 Chinese Dongfeng ballistic missiles had been fired in nearby waters – for the first time since 1996.
It insisted the drills violated United Nations rules, invaded its space and threatened free navigation.
Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists.
The present-day Chinese Communist Party still makes claims to the island of Taiwan as an "inseparable" part of its territory.
