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China tests will

not alter Taiwan air defence

TAIPEI: Taiwan's air force chief said on Saturday that China's second series of planned guided-missile tests north of Taiwan would not affect the island's air force patrols above the Taiwan Straits.

"They will not affect our patrols. We've been monitoring (the Chinese). All the movements of its (China's) air force, we know very well," Commander-in-Charge Huang Hsein-jong said on state-funded television.

The Taiwan Straits separate the island from the mainland.-Reuter