China dispatched 74 military aircraft towards the Taiwan Strait between late Thursday and early Friday, with 61 of them crossing its median line, the Taiwanese defence ministry has said.

The incursion, which represents one of the largest in recent months, began a day after the UK sailed a navy ship across the strait, in a move welcomed by Taipei but condemned by Beijing.

The Chinese planes were sent in two separate waves, with six naval vessels also accompanying the manoeuvres, according to Taiwan.

Beijing regards the democratically governed island as part of its own territory and has stepped up such deployments to demonstrate its readiness to encircle and potentially invade Taiwan.

Analysts say the moves are also aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s population and exhausting its military resources and morale.

Taiwan responded by scrambling its own fighter jets, deploying naval ships and activating land-based missile systems to monitor the incursion.

The incident came after the British patrol vessel HMS Spey passed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcome the patrol, saying it “once again (reaffirmed the Strait's) status as international waters".

“Such transits by the UK and other like-minded countries are encouraged to safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific,” it added.

Britain’s de facto embassy in Taipei said the HMS Spey was legally within its rights to sail through the strait.

“Wherever the Royal Navy operates, it does so in full compliance with international law and exercises its right to Freedom of Navigation and overflight,” it stated.

However, Beijing condemned the Royal Navy’s actions, with the Chinese army saying the British vessel had “deliberately disturbed the situation and undermined the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait".

While the timing raised speculation, it remains unclear whether China's large-scale aerial deployment was a direct response to the British naval transit.

The Taiwan Strait is an important international waterway, but Beijing routinely objects to the presence of foreign military vessels in the area.

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Taiwan is 'of course' a country, president says in rebuke to China

Taiwan is "of course" a country and China lacks both the historical evidence and legal proof to back up its sovereignty claims, President Lai Ching-te said on Sunday in a strong rebuke to Beijing and its stepped up political and military pressure.

China says democratically-governed Taiwan is "sacred" Chinese territory that has belonged to the country since ancient times, and that the island is one of its provinces with no right to be called a state.

Lai and his government strongly reject that view, and have offered talks with China multiple times but have been rejected. China calls Lai a "separatist".

Giving the first of 10 speeches in a series called "uniting the country", Lai drew on Taiwan's history, including the millennia-long connection of its indigenous people to other Austronesians, like native Hawaiians, to show what he said was Taiwan's separate and distinct development from China.

Taiwan's people have a record of opposing invasion, like uprisings against Japan's 1895-1945 colonial rule, and under the last imperial Chinese dynasty, the Qing, Taiwan was only considered a Chinese province for eight years, he added.

"Of course Taiwan is a country," he said at a speech to a Taiwan branch of Rotary International, pointing also to its presidential elections. "But China says no, that Taiwan is not a sovereign country."

China's Taiwan's Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment outside of office hours. China says the 1971 United Nations resolution, which took away Taipei's seat in the body and gave it to Beijing, is one of the legal bases of its claims.

Lai, who in March called China a "hostile foreign force", said it was "totally wrong" for Beijing to say that U.N. resolution had anything to do with Taiwan's sovereignty as it was only about which government was represented at the body.

China's threat to Taiwan is real, added Lai, pointing to its daily military activities around the island.

"Taiwan's future can only be decided by its 23 million people - does everyone approve of this?" he said, to a round of applause.

The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, and that remains the island's formal name.