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.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its