"In my view the air activity in taiwan's, southwest ADIZ has multiple purposes
including intimidating taiwan, wearing
out taiwan's air force sending a message
to the u.s training purposes domestic PRC messaging and setting higher new
normals for PRC air activity, all of
which complicate future indications and
warning of PRC military action," said James Mulvennen a chinese military
expert at Sos International LLC.
In addition to the 52 incursions today
and the four at night local time, beijing
sent 38 warplanes to taiwan's air
defense identification zone on friday, followed by 39 on saturday and 16 on
sunday for 149 total as of this report. The repeated flights of chinese aircraft
were publicized in a series of tweets by
the taiwanese defense ministry as they
have routinely done for some time
and they are not likely to abate anytime
soon, says Dean Chang a top chinese
military expert at the heritage
foundation.
The chinese are clearly going to keep
doing this until the u.s backs off that should worry us he said late last
week, they are exhausting the taiwan air
force they are trying to intimidate them. The other factor in all this is that
taiwan's military will grow used to
substantial numbers of chinese aircraft
testing their defenses. The taiwanese are flying civil air
patrol aircraft warning chinese pilots
by radio and deploying anti-aircraft
systems each time the chinese penetrate
the adhes.
The PLA prodding will allow the chinese
to gather more and more intelligence
about taiwanese operations such as how
quickly they can arm the air defense
systems and how quickly their pilots can
get into the air.
Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu
warned his country as preparing for war
with china during a visit to australia
and asked for more intelligence sharing
and cooperation between the two
countries. "We would like to engage in security or
intelligence exchanges with other
like-minded partners Australia included. So taiwan is better prepared to deal
with the war situation," he said in an
interview on the australian broadcasting
corporation show.
For its part the u.s warned off china
the united states is very concerned by
the people's republic of china's
provocative military activity near
taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks
miscalculations and undermines regional
peace and stability. The state department
said in a statement
we urge beijing to cease its military
diplomatic and economic pressure and
coercion against taiwan.
In response a spokesperson for the
chinese foreign ministry said the u.s
was in no position to make irresponsible
remarks and accused america of making
negative moves through its assistance to
taiwan. The one china principle is the political
foundation of china-u.s relations, the
spokesperson Hua Chunying said today.
According to a translation on the
foreign ministry's
china will take all necessary measures
to resolutely crush all attempts at
taiwan independence. China has a firm resolve and will to
safeguard national sovereignty and
territorial integrity. The flights come just days after china
celebrated the 72nd anniversary of the
founding of the people's republic on
october 1st and days before the
beginning of exercise bursa gold, involving australia Malaysia, Singapore
and New Zealand in the south china sea. A british ship from the hms elizabeth
carrier strike group is expected to join
the exercise.
