China today entered its second-largest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) by entering it, according to Taipei. 30 Air Force aircraft, including 20 fighter jets.
This violation is the biggest since January 23, when 39 aircraft violated the island’s ADIZ.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense announced Monday night that it had ordered rapid take-offs of aircraft and the activation of anti-aircraft missile arrays to monitor Chinese activity.
Recent years, Taiwan ADIZ violations by Chinese military aircraft are commonas Beijing engages in these demonstrations of power, while maintaining the pressure it exerts on its aviation, whose fleet is obsolete.
The island lives under the constant threat of Chinese military invasion. Beijing considers the island, which is now ruled by a democratic regime, a secessionist Chinese province destined to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The air defense identification zone is the part of the airspace where each state wants the aircraft to be identified and monitored for national security reasons.
Last week, The United States has accused Beijing of escalating tensions over Taiwanwith US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken referring specifically to airstrikes, citing “an increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity”.
A few days earlier, US President Joe Biden had said that Washington was ready to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.
But then the White House insisted that US policy, the “strategic ambiguity” as to whether or not to intervene, had not changed.
ADIZ is much larger than Taiwan’s airspace and in some places intersects with that of China, sometimes even with its territory.
A flight map released by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense shows that aircraft entered the southwest corner of ADIZ before leaving it.
Last year, Taiwan recorded a record 969 Chinese air raids, more than double the 380 by 2020, according to the AFP database.
In just one day, on October 4, 2021, 56 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s ADIZ, and 196 that month, which began with China’s national holiday.
Since the beginning of this year, Taiwan has reported 465 violations of ADIZ, a number that has increased by almost 50% compared to the same period last year.
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