China carried out its second largest incursion of the year into Taiwan’s air defense zone on Monday (May 30). According to Taipei, thirty aircraft entered this area, including twenty fighters. These incursions are the largest since January 23, when 39 aircraft entered the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ, for Air Defense Identification Zonein English) of the island.
Taiwan’s defense minister announced Monday evening that he had launched his own planes and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor Chinese activity.
Beijing has in recent years begun incursion campaigns into the Taiwan Defense Zone to show its displeasure and to keep Taipei’s aging air force under pressure. The island lives under the constant threat of an invasion from China. Beijing considers this territory its own and has promised to recover it, by force if necessary.
Washington deepens ties with Taipei
The United States accused Beijing last week of escalating tensions over Taiwan, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken explicitly mentioning aerial incursions, which he said was an example of a “increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity”.
A few days earlier, US President Joe Biden had assured that Washington was ready to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack from China. But the White House then insisted that its policy of“strategic ambiguity” on the possibility or not of an intervention had not changed. Debates are heated in Washington on the advisability of adopting a “strategic clarity” in the face of Beijing’s increasingly aggressive approach.
After Republican Lindsey Graham in April, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth arrived in Taipei on Monday to show her support. Mme Duckworth is the main promoter of the Taiwan Partnership Act, which aims to deepen relations between Washington and Taipei in the field of security, a text which has not yet been put to a vote.
After a meeting with Mr.me Duckworth on Tuesday, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen hinted that some form of rapprochement was already underway. “The US Department of Defense is now actively planning cooperation between the National Guard and the Taiwan Defense Forces”said M.me Tsai in a statement, without giving further explanation.
969 aerial incursions
Taiwan’s ADIZ is much larger than its airspace and intersects at certain points with China’s own ADIZ, or even its territory. A flight map provided by the Ministry of Defense shows that the planes entered through the southwest corner of the ADIZ before exiting. Last year, Taiwan recorded a record 969 Chinese military aerial incursions, according to the AFP database, more than double the 380 incursions in 2020.
On October 4, 2021 alone, 56 aircraft entered Taiwan’s ADIZ, and 196 for the whole of October, which opens with the Chinese National Day. Taiwan has reported 465 incursions since the beginning of the year, an increase of almost 50% compared to the same period last year.
These incursions put pressure on the Taiwanese aviation, which has experienced a series of fatal accidents in recent years. The local press reported on Tuesday the death of a pilot whose plane crashed in Kaohsiung, in the South.
Already in January, a pilot had perished after his F-16V, the most advanced aircraft in the Taiwanese fleet, crashed into the sea. In March 2021, Taipei immobilized all its military aviation, after the collision of two fighters in flight (one dead, one missing) – the third fatal crash in less than six months.
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