The air force last year spent about 1,000 training flight hours on intercepting Chinese military aircraft in airspace near Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said in a report to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft last year accounted for 97 percent of all People’s Liberation Army actions that the ministry classifies as harrying Taiwan’s defenses, the report said.
While the PLAAF has been conducting such flights since 2017, it has shifted its focus from circling Taiwan to intruding into the northwestern sector of the nation’s air defense identification zone, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The Republic of China Air Force’s typical countermeasures have been to track the Chinese aircraft with air-defense missile systems or intercept them with jet fighters, it said, adding that trainer jets were at times employed for interceptions.
To reduce the mission load on fighter pilots and ground crew, the air force has adopted the practice of dispatching C-130 cargo planes and P-3C marine patrol planes to intercept slower-moving Chinese aircraft, it said.
The air force has also adjusted its ratio of flight training and interception, as well as areas of responsibility and areas of flight training for fighter units to increase sustainability, the report said.
The training of pilots was not disrupted by the actions of Chinese aircraft, as overall training flight hours increased by 3 percent, it said.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a senior researcher at the ministry-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said Taiwan should increase the tactical flexibility of its response to counter the ubiquity of China’s air activity.
In similar situations, NATO member states and Japan would monitor the intruding aircraft with radar to determine their bearing before committing fighters to intercept them, he said.
Additionally, the air force should change the frequency of interception missions and deploy different numbers of aircraft to make its response more unpredictable, Su said.
In the long term, the military should consider utilizing armed drones in defensive air patrols, he said, citing the US Air Force’s experiments with arming MQ-9 drones with AIM-9 missiles.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS: The suspects formed spy networks and paramilitary groups to kill government officials during a possible Chinese invasion, prosecutors said Prosecutors have indicted seven retired military officers, members of the Rehabilitation Alliance Party, for allegedly obtaining funds from China, and forming paramilitary groups and assassination squads in Taiwan to collaborate with Chinese troops in a possible war. The suspects contravened the National Security Act (國家安全法) by taking photos and drawing maps of key radar stations, missile installations and the American Institute in Taiwan’s headquarters in Taipei, prosecutors said. They allegedly prepared to collaborate with China during a possible invasion of Taiwan, prosecutors said. Retired military officer Chu Hung-i (屈宏義), 62, a Republic of China Army Academy graduate, went to China
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
RSS