“People’s Liberation Army planes will not only fly around the island of Taiwan. They can also, sooner or later, fly over the island,” warned the Chinese authorities on Tuesday, January 25 through an editorial published in the Communist Party daily Global Times. Beyond Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recurring verbal threats about an upcoming military invasion of Taiwan, China is increasingly increasing the pressure on Taipei. More than 52 warplanes, including several new generation ones, made incursions into the Taiwanese air defense zone between Sunday January 23 and Monday January 24.
→ READ. Taiwan will not give in to pressure from Beijing
“Among these high-tech fighters were J-16Ds”, Taiwanese Ministry of Defense officials confirmed on Tuesday (January 25th). “This aircraft is capable of destroying radars to neutralize and damage the enemy’s air defense capabilities”, even explained Shu Hsiao-huang, an analyst at the Taiwan National Defense and Security Research Institute. These radar attack capabilities can “open the way for further attacks, he added. This poses a great new threat to Taiwan’s air defense.”
Escalation of incursions
Taiwan lives under the constant threat of a Chinese military invasion, which considers this island, which nevertheless has its own democratically elected government, as part of its territory which it wants to recover.
This escalation of incursions began in 2016, the day after the election of President Tsai Ing-wen who judges that Taiwan is a sovereign nation which is not part of China. The last quarter of 2021 saw a spike in such incursions, with October remaining the busiest with 196, including 149 in four days as China celebrated its National Day. But in 2021 alone, Taiwan recorded 969 incursions, more than double the 380 made in 2020.
” War of attrition “
Specialists remain dubious about the real reasons for this incursion last weekend, stressing that the ” war of attrition “ Chinese was the most likely strategy for the time being. They note, however, that these overflights came just after joint naval maneuvers between the United States and Japan in the Philippine Sea.
→ ANALYSIS. Does China want to provoke a war with Taiwan?
It will still be necessary to expect new overflights before the Lunar New Year celebrations and throughout this new year of the Tiger where the next congress of the Chinese Communist Party will be held in October. Leader Xi Jinping should be reappointed as head of the People’s Republic of China for a third consecutive five-year term, the first time since Mao. With the imperative objective of reuniting Taiwan with the motherland. At all costs.