Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early-warning aircraft and Shenyang J-11 fighters on March 16 conducted a nighttime exercise in the waters southwest of Taiwan and, in doing so, came close to the nation’s air defense identification zone.
Three days later, the PLA Navy’s fleet for Gulf of Aden escort mission sailed north in the Pacific off Taiwan’s east coast via the Miyako Strait on its way home.
Meanwhile, the US carried out freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and assembled the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group with the Expeditionary Strike Group to conduct drills in the region, including EP-3E Aries reconnaissance aircraft flying near southern China and Hong Kong several times.
The clouds of war seem to be gathering over the waters extending from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea.
Situated in the eye of the storm, Taiwan needs to pay serious attention to China’s and the US’ muscle-flexing, and try to understand if these actions are pre-war mobilizations or just normal training operations.
The US military is conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to show that China’s territorial claims in the region contravene the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Such naval displays of force are routine and a continuous deployment aimed at achieving political goals, so it is not a question of pre-war mobilization.
The Roosevelt strike group and the expeditionary strike group led by the USS America, an amphibious assault carrier, were only conducting a high-intensity anti-airborne and sea-control joint-force exercise under a multithreat scenario.
In October last year, the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group and the USS Boxer amphibious ready group also met in the South China Sea to carry out similar exercises, so there is no need to make a fuss over it.
However, the US Air Force’s RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft that made multiple appearances in the South China Sea and the US Navy’s EP-3E Aries electronic reconnaissance aircraft that flew near Hong Kong on March 18 — both departing from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa — probably had a different purpose.
One possibility is that the deployment can be attributed to the Standard Missile 2 live-fire exercise launched by the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser the USS Shiloh in the Philippine Sea in the same week, as disclosed in a tweet posted on March 22 by the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet on its Twitter account.
Another possibility is that it might have something to do with the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer the USS Rafael Peralta, which sailed near the Yellow Sea in February and then transited from the East China Sea to the South China Sea last month.
Conducting low-speed offshore navigation and maintaining a distance of 400km of China’s coastline, the destroyer was probably collecting information about the operational mechanism of China’s anti-stealth radars deployed along the coastline from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea.
The US reconnaissance aircraft could have also been conducting ordinary close-in reconnaissance missions.
Taiwan’s armed forces should pay particular attention to the new scenario of nighttime combat operations by the PLA’s airborne early warning aircraft and fighter jets.
In 2015, the RAND Corp think tank published a report entitled China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army, which said that, even in the 21st century, the PLA cannot fight effectively at night, an operating environment that poses a high risk of failure.
However, in 2018, footage of Shenyang J-15 carrier-based fighter jets taking off with a ski-jump from the Liaoning aircraft carrier and landing with the carrier’s arresting gear at night was shown on the Military Report show on China Central Television.
The PLA Air Force has also been flying close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait at night, sufficiently showing its efforts devoted to, and results arising from, nighttime exercises.
The US military is keeping a vigilant eye on the PLA, as the latter has made significant progress not only in military equipment, but also in tactical improvement.
Under this scenario, Taiwan needs to get ready and make comprehensive war preparations, which had better be done as soon as possible to be able to respond to the worst contingency.
Although the recent Chinese and US military deployments in East Asia still fall within the scope of normalized training, the PLA Air Force’s planes flying around Taiwan is certainly a provocation, quite contrary to the opinion of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), a retired lieutenant general.
Taiwan’s armed forces must react prudently and cautiously to the PLA’s actions.
Lu Li-shih is a former instructor at the Republic of China Naval Academy and a former captain of the ROCS Hsin Chiang.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
The first Donald Trump term was a boon for Taiwan. The administration regularized the arms sales process and enhanced bilateral ties. Taipei will not be so fortunate the second time around. Given recent events, Taiwan must proceed with the assumption that it cannot count on the United States to defend it — diplomatically or militarily — during the next four years. Early indications suggested otherwise. The nomination of Marco Rubio as US Secretary of State and the appointment of Mike Waltz as the national security advisor, both of whom have expressed full-throated support for Taiwan in the past, raised hopes that
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
There is nothing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could do to stop the tsunami-like mass recall campaign. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) reportedly said the party does not exclude the option of conditionally proposing a no-confidence vote against the premier, which the party later denied. Did an “actuary” like Chu finally come around to thinking it should get tough with the ruling party? The KMT says the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is leading a minority government with only a 40 percent share of the vote. It has said that the DPP is out of touch with the electorate, has proposed a bloated
Authorities last week revoked the residency permit of a Chinese social media influencer surnamed Liu (劉), better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), who has more than 440,000 followers online and is living in Taiwan with a marriage-based residency permit, for her “reunification by force” comments. She was asked to leave the country in 10 days. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Tuesday last week announced the decision, citing the influencer’s several controversial public comments, including saying that “China does not need any other reason to reunify Taiwan with force” and “why is it [China] hesitant
RSS