China has increased its provocative incursions around Taiwan by 300 percent since May, US Commander of Pacific Air Forces General Kevin Schneider said in an interview published yesterday, adding that adversaries in the region could try to test the new administration of US president-elect Donald Trump.
“Whether it’s coming into the air defense identification zone [ADIZ] or crossing the center line within the Taiwan Strait, since the inauguration [of president William Lai (賴清德)], we have seen a 300 percent increase in those air activities,” Schneider told NBC News.
From May to November last year, Chinese aircraft intruded into Taiwan’s ADIZ 335 times, Ministry of National Defense data showed.
Photo: screen grab from the US Pacific Air Force Facebook page
In the same time frame this year, China intruded into that same airspace at least 1,085 times, more than three times as many as the previous year, NBC News reported.
The difference was more pronounced in the summer — 50 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s ADIZ in July last year, while 210 entered it in July this year, more than four times as many, it said.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has maintained the increased activity level since Lai was sworn in on May 20, Schneider said.
Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, was quoted by NBC News as saying that the flights are fully consistent with international law and common practices, adding that “the PLA’s relevant drills are a necessary and legitimate move to crack down on ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”
Schneider said the biggest challenge he faces comes from Beijing, which is building a massive rocket force, air force, submarine force and cyberforce, which it uses to intimidate other nations in the region.
“It’s the behaviors that have gone along with that. It’s the bullying, the aggressiveness,” Schneider said.
“My assessment is it’s a pressurization campaign designed to win without fighting, and I think just to continue to impose costs, physical or otherwise, to present a fait accompli to the world,” he said. “Not just to Taiwan, but to the world that Beijing can accomplish their objectives, and they continue to ramp up their activities, military activities, in conjunction with diplomatic activities, informational activities, economic activities, to win without fighting.”
US intelligence officials have said that 2027 could be an inflection point for a cross-strait conflict, which would come during Trump’s second term in office, but the returning president has not committed to defending Taiwan during a Chinese invasion, NBC News reported.
It quoted Schneider as saying that 2027 as the year for possible action by Beijing is still uncertain, but added that China’s behavior has grown more aggressive and it is operating farther away from China.
Learning from how the US has operated in the Middle East, Beijing aims to push the US out of the region, while bolstering its military capabilities, the general said.
“We had the ability to take our time, to bring our forces into the theater, to build up large bases, to build up our capability and then at the time of our choosing, when we had the advantages of mass in place, were able to determine when we would go to conduct our operations,” he said. “I assess that Beijing has recognized that, and now they are building this capability to prevent us from ever being able to do that and replicating it.”
Adversaries in the region could try to test the new Trump administration in its early days, and opportunist “actors in the region may seek to challenge a new administration,” he said.
“It’s something that we on the military side are ready for, and we continue to provide options back to our national leadership,” he said.
Ultimately, the US is still focused on effective deterrence to prevent conflict in the region, Schneider said.
“And if that peace, stability and security is unilaterally upended by anyone in the region, then we will react, and we will react with a network of allies and partners that is incredibly capable,” he added.
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS