The news earlier this month that China has unilaterally activated northbound flights on the M503 route elicited scrutiny from the legislature and TV pundits as the debate continues over whether the Taiwan Strait should be regarded as China’s territorial waters or Taiwan’s.
While the gap between China’s military strength and Taiwan’s is undeniable, it is by no means certain that the Republic of China’s (ROC) armed forces would be helpless, or that Taiwan has essentially ceded the Taiwan Strait to China.
This author has previously written of personally conducting military surveillance patrols up to 15 nautical miles (27.78km) from the coast of China in the early days, although this range has since shrunk to east of the median line.
Now China has activated — without prior approval — controversial flight routes over the Taiwan Strait. Nevertheless, Taiwan has at its disposal a comprehensive intelligence surveillance capability, coupled with 24/7 military preparedness incorporating ground-based early warning systems, surface-to-air defense positions, and sea and air patrols around the entire island.
This is why Chinese patrols have yet to penetrate the periphery of Taiwan proper and have only managed to show aerial photography taken by air force crews of Taiwan’s mountain ranges, seen from afar.
The political significance of opening the northbound M503 flight route and feeder routes is clear. In practical terms, it will make it more difficult for the air force to distinguish military and commercial flights.
Should commercial flights apply to stray east of the median line, citing adverse weather conditions, the nation will have to divert military exercises accordingly, which will create all kinds of air safety incidents and near misses. How will the government respond when these cause tensions with China?
Beijing’s opening of flight routes and military drills in the area are part of its attempts to make the Taiwan Strait part of China’s territorial waters. This, coupled with the large numbers of new fighters China’s military has commissioned over the past few years and the frequency of military drills, with incursions into the waterways and airspace of neighboring countries, suggests an aspiration go beyond “internalizing” the Taiwan Strait: Beijing has set its sights on making all waters west of the first island chain part of its territorial waters to give its military complete freedom of activity there.
Chinese media have said that the new Russian-made fourth-generation Sukhoi Su-35 fighters Beijing has purchased have been deployed in military exercises and that the Wing Loong II drone and Guizhou Soar Dragon High-Altitude Long Endurance reconnaissance drone have been commissioned, greatly enhancing China’s military capabilities.
Despite upgrading the Ching-kuo class Indigenous Defense Fighters and the F-16 Fighting Falcon combat aircraft to the F-16V configuration, budgetary limitations mean that Taiwan’s military capabilities have fallen behind those of Japan, South Korea and ASEAN.
Faced with increasingly frequent incursions by Chinese aircraft carriers into waters around Taiwan and the possibility within the next year of drones entering airspace east of the median line at altitudes beyond the reach of Taiwan’s fighters, more incidents of J-20 stealth fighters or Su-35 fighters circling the island and aircraft carriers assisting in military exercises around Taiwan proper, Taiwan’s senior military officers will have their work cut out for them.
The military must do all in its power to ensure that Beijing does not make the Taiwan Strait part of China’s territorial waters.
Lu Yu-li is a former assistant director for the Military Intelligence Department Headquarters of the Republic of China Air Force.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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