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Taiwan Responds as China Sends 39 Military Aircraft Into Its Air Defense ID Zone

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TAIPEI, Taiwan—China is showing no sign of easing its aggression against Taiwan in 2022, after the Chinese military sent 39 military aircraft into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Jan. 23, a record high in a single day this year.

The latest incursion involved 34 J-16 and J-10 fighter jets, one H-6 bomber, and four aircraft with electronic warfare capabilities, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. In response, Taiwan’s military scrambled fighters, issued radio warnings, and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor the activities.

Chinese warplanes have been making forays into the island’s ADIZ since September 2020, when Taiwan’s defense ministry began releasing information on the incursion amid a significant increase in the number of such flights.

There were about 380 sorties in 2020 according to the ministry. The number more than doubled to some 961 sorties in 2021. Last year, the Chinese regime’s largest show of force happened on Oct. 4, when 56 military aircraft incurred the island’s ADIZ.

So far this month, there have been only five days when the ministry didn’t report any incidence of China’s incursion.

The Chinese Communist Party is trying to wear down Taiwan’s Air Force with its repeated air incursions. More importantly, the communist regime is hoping to intimidate the island into submission—so that Beijing could take over Taiwan without the need to resort to military conflicts.

But war has always been an option for the Chinese regime since it has never renounced the use of force against self-governing Taiwan. ​​In October last year, Taiwan’s defense minister warned that Beijing would be capable of mounting a full-scale invasion of the island by 2025.

Epoch Times Photo
Taiwan military personnel stand next to the domestically produced corvette class vessel Tuo Chiang during a drill at the northern city of Keelung on Jan. 7, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Lin Ying-yu, associate professor of Asia-Pacific affairs at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, told local news outlet Central News Agency that Sunday’s incursion could be a way for Beijing to show off its military power, in response to joint U.S. and Japanese military activities in waters near Japan.

For six days ending on Jan. 22, 10 U.S. military vessels—including aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham Lincoln, a destroyer, and an amphibious assault ship—took part in a joint exercise with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, according to Japanese media outlet NHK. The exercise took place in waters south of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.

On Jan. 24, Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force wrote on Twitter that the joint exercise was to “strengthen the capability of Japan-U.S. Alliance for effective deterrence and response.”

Another U.S. aircraft carrier USS Reagan has returned to the Japanese city of Yokosuka, after months of deployment, according to the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command.

In early January, at an online defense meeting between top Japanese and U.S. officials, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin named China as a threat to the Indo-Pacific, according to the Pentagon.

“We’re meeting against a backdrop of increased tensions and challenges to the free, stable, and secure Indo-Pacific region that we both seek … challenges posed by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and by the coercive and aggressive behavior of the People’s Republic of China,” Austin said.

China’s air incursion on Oct. 4 last year also coincided with similar U.S. Navy activities. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, six nations—Canada, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.S., and Britain—took part in a joint naval exercise in waters near Okinawa during Oct. 2-3, 2021.

Seventeen surface ships took part in the drill, including four aircraft carriers—USS Ronald Reagan, USS Carl Vinson, British HMS Queen Elizabeth, and Japanese helicopter carrier JS Ise. 

Frank Fang

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Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers news in China and Taiwan. He holds a master’s degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.





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