China’s increasing military activities around Taiwan in the past year were aimed at testing the country’s vigilance and wearing down Taiwanese military planes and ships, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels have approached Taiwan’s waters and airspace, it said, adding that Chinese forces have also been operating more frequently in the skies and waters off Taiwan’s eastern coast.
The actions demonstrate China’s attempt to “dominate an expanse of sea that could be vital for the island’s [Taiwan’s] defenses” and for its receiving any assistance from the US in the case of an attack, the paper cited experts as saying.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
Beijing has been ratcheting up military activities amid heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait and might display a show of force again in the next few days as Vice President William Lai (賴清德) stops over in the US on his way to and from Paraguay to attend the inauguration of Paraguayan president-elect Santiago Pena, it said.
China flies fighter jets, which involve “increasingly diverse and sophisticated arrays of planes,” to harass Taiwan almost every day, it said, adding that the planes often cross the median line, “effectively erasing what was until several years ago an informal boundary between the two sides.”
Retired air force lieutenant general Chang Yan-ting (張延廷) told the New York Times that these actions might shorten the time Taiwan would have had in a contingency.
“In the past, there was a buffer, our median line in the Taiwan Strait, and that gave enough warning time and strategic depth. Now that’s gone, disappeared,” he was quoted as saying.
Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, was quoted as saying that China now deploys planes for aerial refueling and helicopters for anti-submarine warfare and large numbers of military drones around Taiwan.
“That’s a sign of China’s growing efforts to project power far beyond its shores and conduct more sophisticated operations that integrate the air force with the navy,” Ou was quoted as saying.
Ben Lewis, a military analyst specializing in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Taiwan security affairs, was quoted as saying that more than 1,700 Chinese flights entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone last year, nearly double that in 2021.
The number continues to rise this year, he said, adding that “normalization of these activities is the goal.”
While the increase in flights does not mean that war is looming, experts think the PLA’s increase in activity around Taiwan “is better understood as a longer-term effort to corrode its security and alertness,” the article said.
Responding to China’s intensified military actions is a huge burden on Taiwan’s defense budget, nearly 9 percent of which in 2020 was spent on monitoring and tailing Chinese military planes and ships, it said.
Taiwan now only sends fighter jets to monitor the Chinese planes when the threats seem explicit rather than conducting routine checks, it said.
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