China sent its largest number of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone since October on Sunday, Taipei’s Defense Ministry announced, as a report said that Beijing had recently established a constant naval presence between southern Japan and eastern Taiwan — an area viewed as a potential future battleground.
Sunday’s incursion of 39 warplanes, mostly advanced fighter jets, was the most in a single day since China sent 56 bombers, fighters and spy planes into the ADIZ on Oct. 4. The sortie included 24 J-16 fighters, 10 J-10 fighters and one nuclear-capable H-6 heavy bomber as well as reconnaissance aircraft.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement late Sunday that it scrambled its own aircraft to broadcast warnings and deployed missiles to track the Chinese warplanes, which flew in the southwestern part of its ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, according to a map provided by the ministry.
Sending the warplanes allows Beijing to probe and stress the Taiwanese military while at the same time providing invaluable training opportunities for the Chinese side, according to experts.
Some observers said Sunday’s ADIZ flight may have been a response to joint training by the U.S. Navy and Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the Philippine Sea, which includes waters to the east of Taiwan.
The MSDF said Monday that its Hyuga helicopter carrier had conducted joint exercises for five days through Saturday with two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups south of Okinawa Prefecture to strengthen the two navies' deterrence and response capabilities.
The move also came just days after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden held a virtual summit, with the two leaders agreeing to “push back” against China’s assertive actions in the region.
The latest incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ — which differs from sovereign airspace — and confusion over the moves’ intended signals have unleashed a flood of concern in both Washington and Tokyo and raised the specter of military miscalculation.
The two capitals both view Taipei as a crucial, albeit informal, partner in combating Beijing’s attempts to change the status quo in the region via coercion. China sees Taiwan as an inherent part of its territory and a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold — by force if necessary.
The moves have been especially concerning as the Sino-U.S. rivalry pushes the two powers’ relationship to its lowest point in decades and triggers fears of a new Cold War that would envelop all four capitals.
In a signal that Beijing is not backing away from continued moves to isolate Taipei, the Financial Times reported Monday that China has established a constant naval presence close to Japan’s Nansei Islands and eastern Taiwan. The move is viewed as a striking expansion of its sea power in an area seen as a prime location for a potential Sino-U.S. clash if Beijing attacked the self-ruled island, as well as one that would almost certainly drag Japan into the fight.
The paper, citing unidentified officials from Taiwan, Japan and the U.S., said that the Chinese Navy has rotated destroyers and missile corvettes through the waters east and south of the southernmost tip of Okinawa Prefecture’s Ryukyu chain, which are known in Japan as the Nansei Islands, for at least six months.
Quoting one U.S. defense official, the FT report said the Chinese Navy had now had a consistent presence of one warship in the area and that it was often accompanied by a second warship.
The islands are home to the bulk of the 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.
The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the story.
For the Chinese Navy, operating freely in the waters is crucial as it seeks to punch further into the Western Pacific and prevent the possibility of being bottled up by U.S. and Japanese forces in the event of a conflict, experts say.
In what has now become a common mantra, Kishida and Biden used their summit Friday to stress the importance of “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” calling for a “peaceful” resolution to the cross-strait issue with China.
Tokyo and Washington have also reportedly begun work on formalizing a joint operations plan between the U.S. military and Self-Defense Forces to prepare for an emergency over Taiwan, with this month’s two-plus-two meeting of the allies’ top diplomats and defense chiefs welcoming “robust progress” on “evolving alliance roles ... and on bilateral planning for contingencies.”
Kishida hinted on Friday at deeper discussions on Taiwan with Biden, saying that the pair had “spent a lot of time exchanging views on China,” but refused to reveal more details about the talks.
China has lambasted the moves by Japan and the U.S. over Taiwan.
“Japan has handed over its land to the U.S. military as an outpost for intervention in the Taiwan Straits,” the state-run Global Times said in an editorial earlier this month. “This is equivalent to sending a target to the People's Liberation Army. Japan's strategic depth is extremely small, and any military target can easily be locked. If the Japanese Self-Defense Forces participate directly, then they will inevitably face more serious consequences.”
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