China has made the second largest foray into Taiwan’s air defense zone this year, with Taipei reporting that 30 planes entered the area, including more than 20 fighters.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said Monday afternoon that it had shuffled its own planes and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor China’s latest activity.
In recent years, Beijing has begun sending large departures to Taiwan’s defense zone to indicate dissatisfaction and to keep the aging Taipei fighter fleet regularly stressed.
Self-governing democratic Taiwan lives under the constant threat of an invasion by China, which considers the island as its territory and has pledged to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
Last week, the United States accused Beijing of escalating tensions on the island, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken specifically mentioning air raids as an example of “increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity.”
Blinken’s remarks came after U.S. President Joe Biden appeared to be breaking decades of US politics when, in response to a question on a visit to Japan, he said Washington would militarily defend Taiwan if attacked. for China.
But the White House has since insisted that its “strategic ambiguity” policy on whether or not to intervene has not changed.
Monday’s raid was the largest since January 23, when 39 planes entered the Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.
ADIZ is not the same as Taiwan’s territorial airspace, but it does include a much larger area that overlaps with part of China’s own air defense identification zone and even includes part of the mainland.
A flight map provided by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense showed that the planes entered the southwest corner of ADIZ before taking off again.
Last year, Taiwan recorded 969 Chinese warplanes raids on its ADIZ, according to an AFP database, more than double the roughly 380 in 2020.
The highest number of aircraft China has sent in a single day was 56 on October 4, 2021. That month saw a record of 196 raids, most around the annual national day celebrations. of China.
By 2022, Taiwan has reported 465 raids, an increase of about 50% over the same period last year. The large number of departures has put the air force under immense pressure and has suffered a series of fatal accidents in recent years.
Local media reported on Tuesday that a pilot had died after crashing into a training plane south of Kaohsiung. It’s not the first fatal crash this year: in January, one of Taiwan’s most advanced fighter jets, an F-16V, sank at sea.
Last March, Taiwan landed all military aircraft after one pilot died and another disappeared when its fighters crashed into the air in the third fatal crash in less than six months.