Embassy to Beijing
Taiwan is letting its best fighter jets fly
08/17/2022, 9:35 p.m
China underscored its claims on Taiwan with a major military maneuver at the beginning of August. In response, the island state is now letting its most modern combat aircraft out of the hangars. The F-16V aircraft have only been in Taipei’s service for a few months.
In response to recent Chinese military maneuvers, Taiwan has unveiled its most advanced fighter jets. At Hualien Air Force Base in eastern Taiwan, armed forces equipped an F-16V fighter jet with a US-made anti-ship missile to “rehearse combat readiness,” the Taiwan Air Force said. Six F-16Vs later took off on a night reconnaissance flight and practice flights, two of them armed with missiles.
After the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a US Congress delegation to Taiwan, China held extensive military maneuvers in the waters around Taiwan and in the air. The government in Taipei then accused Beijing of using the visit as an excuse to practice an invasion of the democratically governed island.
Taiwan also held military exercises. “Faced with the threat posed by the recent military exercises by Chinese communist forces, we have remained vigilant and implemented the concept of ‘battlefields anywhere and training anytime’ to ensure our national security,” Taiwan’s Air Force said on Wednesday.
Taiwan is modernizing its air force
Taiwan has modernized its aging fighter jet fleet in recent years as Beijing regularly sends planes into Taiwan’s defensive airspace to bolster its claim to the island and pressure the Taiwan Air Force.
Since the split between China and Taiwan in 1949, Beijing has viewed the island as a breakaway territory that it wants to reunite with the mainland – if necessary, using military force. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has raised fears that Beijing could use a similar approach in its dealings with Taiwan.
In November, Taiwan commissioned its first squadron of US-sourced F-16V fighter jets, a more modern, sophisticated version of its 1990s F-16 fighter jets. The delivery had been sealed by the US government under ex-President Donald Trump.