Tsai broke into a smile when she heard the warning and an officer came forward to shut down the radio broadcast by the PLA. The conversation continued with Tsai asking the air force captain if she had spotted anything unusual on patrol, and urging her to remain vigilant when she was told nothing had been spotted.
The episode was later remade into a funny clip by the mainland-based nationalistic news outlet Huanqiu.com, showing Tsai making a weird smile.
On Monday, the Taiwanese air force explained that the PLA had not cut into Tsai’s radio channel and the PLA warning came from another radio channel monitored by the control centre of the island’s air force defence and missile command.
“President Tsai was using a combat readiness exclusive radio line for communication and the PLA was using the aircraft emergency frequency in its radio broadcast,” the Taiwanese air force said.
“They were two different systems and the president was not affected at all,” it said, adding that the air force was able to effectively control different situations around Taiwan and respond to all kinds of actions taken by the PLA.
Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen also said on Monday that the PLA had not intercepted Tsai’s radio system.
“This reflects the kind of challenges our air force has to tackle every day in defending our air territory,” he said, referring to the missile command’s role in monitoring what the PLA Air Force says and does.
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