According to AFP data, China sent 1,727 aircraft to Taiwan’s air defense zone in 2022.
Chinese warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone nearly doubled in 2022, when Beijing dramatically stepped up military pressure on the island, according to data compiled by AFP. Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by communist China, which considers the island part of its territory and has vowed to take it back one day, if necessary by force.
Relations between Beijing and Taipei, at their lowest since Xi Jinping came to power more than ten years ago, have deteriorated even more brutally in 2022. China has stepped up incursions around Taiwan and has launched its largest military maneuvers in years, in retaliation for a visit in early August by the American Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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1727 planes sent by China in 2022
Last year, China sent 1,727 military aircraft to Taiwan’s Identification and Air Defense Zone (Adiz), compared to 960 in 2021 and 380 in 2020, according to a database compiled by AFP. using daily figures provided by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense. The Adiz, not to be confused with a country’s airspace, encompasses a much larger area in which any foreign aircraft are expected to report to local air authorities. Taiwan’s Adiz overlaps part of China’s and even includes a portion of the mainland.
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Between 2021 and 2022, Chinese fighter jet incursions more than doubled, from 538 to 1,241, those of bombers, including the nuclear-capable H6, jumped from 60 to 101. It is also in 2022 that Chinese drones have entered Taiwan’s Adiz for the first time. The Taiwanese military recorded 71 of these incursions, all after Nancy Pelosi’s visit.
These Chinese flights are seen as a way to deplete Taiwan’s aging fleet of fighter jets and study its defensive responses. But also to send a signal to Washington. “They want to show their determination (…) and compel the United States: don’t get too close to their red lines, don’t cross them“Explains to AFP Lee Hsi-min, former chief of staff of Taiwan.
Washington diplomatically recognizes China but remains Taipei’s main ally, supplying it with weapons and maintaining a policy of “strategic ambiguityon his possible military intervention in the event of a Chinese attack. This policy aims as much to dissuade China from invading Taiwan as to prevent the island’s leaders from provoking Beijing by officially declaring its independence.
United States allies of Taiwan
In Washington, support for Taiwan is a rare subject of consensus between Republicans and Democrats. But President Joe Biden has started to move away from the position of “strategic ambiguityclaiming in multiple interviews that the United States would come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of an attack.
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For Beijing, aerial incursions are often a way of expressing discontent. On December 25, it thus sent 71 planes for a “hitting exercisein response, according to her, to a “escalation of collusion and provocationsfrom Washington and Taipei, a few days after the granting of US military aid of 10 billion dollars to Taiwan.
A record 440 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aerial sorties were recorded in August, the month of the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. “More frequent sorties are worrying, and force Taiwan to be on perpetual high alert to ensure the PLA doesn’t use them as cover for an attack“, told AFP J. Michael Cole, an analyst based in Taipei.
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However, this “does not mean that the Chinese Communist Party is ready to use force at an early date“, he specifies, “at least not according to an invasion scenario, which would require months of mobilization“. With its incursions, Beijing is leading a “war of attrition against the Taiwanese armyobserves Richard Hu, deputy director of the Taiwan Center for Security Studies at National Chengchi University.
Beijing also intends to collect information on the level of preparation of the Taiwanese army. But conquering this mountainous island would be a formidable challenge for Beijing, continues this retired general. “To take Taiwan by force, the People’s Republic of China still faces a number of vital difficulties.“, he believes. “Like getting hundreds of thousands of troops across the Taiwan Strait“.
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